Almost There, Going Nowhere
by Xyliette
Summary: Mark/Addison. Post Season 3 finale. Addison leaves for L.A. hoping no one gets in her way but life has a different plan.
1. There's been too many days of trying

A/N: This is actually posted over at Livejournal as well because I like the formatting better over there but I figured I would put a chapter up and see how it does over here. Let me know what you think and maybe I will keep cross-posting. Thanks! (oh and the fic title, "Almost There, Going Nowhere" is taken from the Starting Line.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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There's been too many days of trying

But did you try enough?

Because at the end of the day

All those words you meant to say

Still were used thoughts

-Jeniferever- "Closing In"

She watches him hastily make his exit out the back door of the church. _Well at least you got one thing accomplished today. Maybe he will be happier with her. No one wants me...oh stop it.. Pull yourself together...this is nothing new. _She thinks to herself as she attempts to keep her fingernails from picking at the peeling lacquer of the hard pew bench. She sees Burke stroll down the aisle as someone leans over to her and says, "Well this should be interesting."

"Maybe". She replies and returns to scuffing up the pew. Incredibly "unladylike" as her mother would have put it, but she doesn't feel the need to be ladylike today. Today has been one helluva (for lack of a better word that she can't find) day. The first task of saving twins while under extreme strain from Dr. Burke to hurry up the pace was slightly daunting, but the real pressure came later when she couldn't save her mentor's child. And the icing on the cake was his informal, albeit, a well meaning speech about taking a job to get a life. She sees Meredith walk painstakingly slow up the aisle with no one behind her.

"Its over, you can all go home now." Her small voice squeaks as she fidgets with her hands.

"Told you." The voice beside her rises again. She reaches for her purse and begins to stand in the middle of Meredith's speech, because honestly she couldn't care less about what the anorexic child had to say about the current situation. All she knows is that now she is going to be left with alone her thoughts for the night, and that is frightening enough.

"Great, well there goes my entertainment for the night." A familiar voice behind her booms. She turns to see the one and only, manwhore extraordinaire pacing up towards her row.

"Mine too." She stands and begins to file out of the room with everyone except Meredith and a noticeably grief stricken Derek. She is still in the midst of pretending it doesn't hurt to see them together so she rushes out quickly.

"We should go grab a drink, make our own reception." He smirks and extends his hand to place on the small of her back.

"I don't think so. I need to go. Do something." She turns around surprised at his sudden pressure from his hand.

"Convincing Addie, real convincing." They exit and make their way out of the lobby doors and towards the flock of parked cars. "At least let me share a cab with you back to the hotel?"

"I have my own wheels, thanks." She grins as she produces the keys from her purse and jangles them in front of his face.

"Is that legal? You are the worst driver in the world. You might want to let me handle that so you don't die in a car accident caused by your inability to-"

"I can drive. See you tomorrow." She begins to head for her new car and notices him tagging along a few steps behind her. "What? What do you want now?"

"Oh, I have to see the masterful machine that got you back behind the wheel. You didn't think that I was just going to walk away did you?" He picks up his pace and cuts in close by her side as a car drives awkwardly out of the mess that has developed.

"Fine. There." She points to the tiny red convertible parked under the shade of a large tree.

"That?" He asks suddenly slack-jawed.

"Yes, that is my car. Now stop before you even start that way I don't have to waste my breath countering on an argument that doesn't even need to happen." She waves her hands ambiguously in the air as they continue on their walk to her newest possession.

"I never pegged you as a sports car fanatic. Let's see how this baby handles." He grabs the keys from her hand before she can even begin to protest.

"Mark! I have things to do, things better than screwing around with you in my car." She quickly begins striding towards him in her black 4-inch heels.

"Funny you should use the term screwing, because that one night in the bar... well I thought we were friends without benefits, but geez Addison if you want I guess we could-"

"Stop! This is insane, you know what I meant. Now give me my keys so I can leave you standing here like the fool you are." She tries again to get the keys away from him but he holds them above her head just slightly out of her reach."How old are we? Four? Give me the keys!"

"You know how I feel about bossy." He remarks while gently turning her around and pressing her against the red hood that is glimmering in the surprising sun.

She begins to grow flustered by his touch, and before she can control it her cheeks are red and warm. "I-We-No, give me the keys." He quickly moves away from her inviting body and slides into the driver's seat. He starts the engine and as it catches and roars to life she jumps off the hood and walks toward the passenger's side. "You get twenty minutes, and that is it. I have things to do Mark."

A slow smile begins to creep over his face as he negotiates out into the traffic. "Like me?" He watches her squirm in the passenger seat and decides that he probably deserves whatever she did with Karev. All he has ever done is shown her the million reasons why they can't work. As he merges onto the highway to "open her up" his mood shifts and he decides to show her a side of him he usually reserves for himself. "Listen Addison, all cheating aside during our bet I really-"

"Don't bother Mark. It's us. We never work, but we always sound like an awfully good idea. I'm not mad, you aren't mad. Let's leave it how it is now and just stay friends." She begins to stick her hand out the window as the wind catches her hair and pulls it back behind her. He watches for a moment as she makes small wave motions and simply nods. If anything it should be easier this way, but nothing is ever easy where Addison is concerned. Hell he managed to move across the country into the land of torrential downpours, get walking pneumonia, be hated by everyone, screw half a dozen nurses, be completely miserable and in the end he would do it all again if she asked.

"I know we never work, but we haven't exactly tried as hard as we could have." He remarks while changing lanes.

"I'm moving." She manages to blurt out from her viewpoint and is too deftly afraid to turn and see the look on his face. She tries strenuously to keep her emotions in check as he heads toward an off-ramp.

"Moving? Like into a house or an apartment? Do you need help moving? I am not sure if you noticed but these muscles are pretty handy at more than just holding a scalpel." He turns into a deserted parking lot against the shoulder of the road.

"No. I am moving... to L.A." She quietly and uncomfortably tenses as he begins to ask the questions she has no desire to answer. "I would appreciate if you didn't say anything to anyone. Richard knows, and I wasn't going to tell anyone but-"

"You weren't going to tell me! It was just going to be like one day I show up at work and the one person I left everything for and got nothing except rained on is mysteriously missing?" Growing agitated is not something he likes to do, but this woman has always had some sort of secret power over him, and he can't control his words or actions. "You think that leaving is going to fix everything that is so miraculously wrong in your life? Pulling a Derek doesn't fix a damn thing Addison and you know it."

She was expecting this sort of reaction, but it still shocks her a little how much he can still care... and still manage to bring up the affair. She turns away from his angry face. "I wasn't going to pull a Derek. Richard knows."

"The chief in New York knew too, but that didn't stop him from saying he had no idea where he had disappeared to. Why are you doing this? You have something here, your job, and your friends, why can't you just start over here?" His questions have lost intensity and have grown quiet and curious.

"I have nothing here except the constant aching reminder of everything that I have done wrong in the last 12 years. How would you like to have that looking you in the face every waking minute? Friends you say? What friends Mark? The ones that talk behind my back or the ones that are too afraid to ever do anything with me outside of the hospital because I am their boss?" She laughs a little at her own comment for dramatic purposes and then presses on. "A great group they are. Oh.. and I suppose I have the rain, but then again I have to share that with every other inhabitant of the god forsaken city."

He lets her finish her little speech that he is sure she had been planning in case the situation ever arose. He gives her a second to breathe in the warm air of the summer before causally remarking, "You have me."

"Which leaves me with a whole lot of nothing." Her words echo through his head as he starts the car again and heads for the hotel. Maybe she is right, and maybe he is nothing to her now. But he knows that what they shared, when they shared. It was the farthest thing from nothing that he had ever experienced, and now in the face of losing it all he pulls a classic Mark Sloan and says little to refute her desires and everything to ensure that she leaves as fast as she can pack her bags.


	2. Dancing in circles, making me sick

**_-----_**

**_ I've been waiting for answers  
Dancing in circles, making me sick  
I've been chained like a tiger  
To hundreds of liars all holding hands  
_**_-Starting Line- "Ready"_**_  
_****_-----  
_**

She tries to keep her mind steady as she carefully folds clothing into an already full suitcase. The ride "home" (she has nothing else to call it) was finished in silence and he left her in the hallway without a word. She hadn't planned on telling anyone goodbye. A little under a year ago she came out here to get her husband back. She lost at that, and has succeeded in making few friends, who she assures herself, will live just fine without her.

Upon hearing the light knocking on the door she contemplates acting like she isn't there. She has no idea who it is and could frankly care less. She freezes as the sound increases in volume and prays to whatever god that will have her that it will go away so she can continue on packing and assuring herself that this is the right choice. It is her only choice.

"I know you are in there. I watched you go in your room. So unless you have jumped from the balcony you better get your ass to the door and open it now." It is a familiar voice. One that she has learned to revel in. Callie may be the one friend she will miss from this place, so she strolls over to the wooden door and opens it slightly with a small smile beginning to take place. Although she has quite a few years on the black haired woman, she admires her spunk and ceaseless amount of hope.

"What? I don't get to come in. Do you have a guy in there?" She states as she tries to peer through the crack.

"Uh.. No. I mean definitely no, I don't have a guy in here. I am just cleaning and it is a mess. I will join you." She steps out into the hall wishing that Callie couldn't see past her casually dressed figure and into to the mess on the bed that has yet to be packed. She has no idea where all this stuff came from, and she was certain that most of what she owned was still sitting in New York waiting for her inevitable return.

"I don't want to talk in the hall. This is important. Let's just go inside, order ice cream, and talk about the many many reasons why men and marriage suck."

"Oh.. Well I am kind of busy right now. Maybe we could do dinner in half an hour?" She needs something to work with here. There is no way Callie will understand if she let her in.

"No. I need to talk now. What's up with you? You are acting all flaky and… oh my god! You didn't!"

"Didn't what?"

"You slept with Mark again. I knew it. Is he still in there? Because I can totally come back some other time."

"What! No.. no I didn't do that. I am just busy."

"You are a horrible liar. Anyone ever tell you that?" Addison thinks that she is a pretty convincing liar but decides that Callie will probably have to learn that in due time anyway. Callie pushes her way past and walks into the half packed room. "What the hell is going on in here? Did you find an apartment or a house or something finally?" Her eyes scan the heaps of clothing and the boxes of shoes that have yet to be packed.

"Kind of. I am moving." She walks in closely behind her and hopes that she won't have to explain to anyone else the reason that seems so obvious to her.

"Well I see that! Geesh." She walks over to the boxes of shoes that sit atop one another and begins looking inside. "Damn."

"What?" She remarks frightened that maybe she has found some old picture or keepsake long lost in the box with a pair of black Manolo pumps. "They are just shoes."

"Ridiculously expensive and gorgeous shoes." She holds up the torn heel. "But what the hell happened to it?"

The memories of awful times in a tin can trailer flood her mind and she bites back tears with her simple reply of, "Doc."

"What?" She asks while flinging around the broken shoe from a better time.

"Meredith's dead dog. Doc. He liked shoes apparently. I found him one morning… Nevermind. It isn't important, I should throw those away. No sense in packing them." Her mind slips as the sentence trails off and suddenly she can't stop the tears bottled up from an entire year of pain and a lifetime of agony any longer. She hopes as she bats at the tears falling freely that the girl in front of her will stay facing forward because crying in front of anyone who isn't Mark is just outright embarrassing. Not that crying in front of him isn't embarrassing, it has just happened too many times for her to care or count anymore. She has pride (however withered it may be these days) so she uses that back of her tired hand to absorb the moisture while trying to stifle a sob.

To her credit she can sense a change of inflection in her friend's voice and turns to find her crying. "Hey now, it is just a shoe and by the looks of it you have plenty more where that came from." She moves towards her.

"No.. I know. It is just a shoe. Just a stupid shoe. I'm stupid. Look at me this is ridiculous." She takes a deep breath to try and re-group before heading over to the ripped shoe to toss it in the garbage. "Sorry about that."

"You love shoes. I suppose it is rough when one of your babies gets hurt." She offers while following back to the bed.

She fakes a smile that could pass for a real one if she gave it to anyone in this town and sits next to the shoes. "It isn't the shoes. But speaking of babies, how goes the quest?"

"Good! Well ok, not to gross you out with details but I told him, and we tried this afternoon before the wedding. So maybe." Callie's mouth opens into a wide smile and she can't help but feel good for her friend no matter how much it hurts to watch other people conceive.

"That's good. That's really good. I am happy for you guys."

"You still have to be my doctor. No getting out of that no matter how much you cry." She sits with a thud next to the other woman who is perched tediously on the edge of the king sized bed.

"Fine." She replies with a smirk and tries to lift her demeanor to a pleasant state so that the real questions will stay as far away as possible.

"So can I ask you something? I mean I know we aren't the best of friends, and I don't do friends well..."

"You can ask me anything you want to. I reserve the right not to answer though."

"Ok, deal."

"Floor is all yours." She is happy for the change in conversation and perhaps a change in her train of thought. Worrying about someone else's problems has always been so much more entertaining then her own issues which do nothing but remind her of how much she has failed lately.

"Remember when I told you about Izzie Stevens?" She nods and the speech continues on, "Well you said that usually there is a reason for thinking that way and I don't know-. Something just feels off between George and me. And we had this huge fight before and now it feels wrong."

"Fight?" She motions an unsure response as she begins to play with the tattered heel.

"Small fight.. Turned large. It was nothing. But he got mad and left, and then my dad came out and talked to him, and then I told him I wanted a baby. Maybe it is all going too fast. Maybe we just need time to slow down. Maybe it is nothing."

She tries to stem the feeling of the conversation she held earlier with Izzie about being an adulterer but her mind is literally running wild with ideas, all of which will break the person next to her. "Maybe it isn't nothing. Maybe it is something. But you should talk it out with him, not me, you know."

"I know. I just thought I'd run it by you first and see if you had heard anything."

"I am not big on gossip because most of the time it involves me. Although I do have a certain flare in these wildly popular stories, most of them are untrue. It is better to just talk to him Callie." She chucks the shoe away from her and decides right then that she did the right thing. The truth will come out. It always does, and this isn't her place to be saying a word about the things she thinks may or may not be true.

She stands up and heads for the door but suddenly turns back looking at the woman on the floor with some sort of expectation. "Yeah?"

"Stand up. This is the part where we hug now. I think. I don't know I am not the best at this. But I am pretty sure that girls hug, a lot."

"Right." She stands and takes in the warmth of an embrace by the only friend she has made in the last few months of hell.

"Well I am off to talk to the husband."

"Good luck." She desperately wants some sort of confirmation that it isn't going to turn out the way she is certain that it will.

"Thanks. Umm.. You too with this moving thing. Call me if you need help organizing when you get set up. Oh! And I want to do your new house party. That's a girl thing. I swear we can invite total strangers and no one from the hospital."

"Sounds good." But you may have to catch a plane to do it. Minor details, she thinks as the door slams shut and she is left alone again with her thoughts. She is hoping that no one else tries to stop by so that she can actually manage to get something other than crying over a broken old shoe accomplished.

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A/N: Ok, so chapter two up. Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts feel free to let me know. Thanks!

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	3. Too late to learn from experience

A/N: I am very hesitant about this chapter. While writing this it felt very needed and now looking back a little out place. Nevertheless I needed closure and this is how I went about it. Don't hate me just yet, we will get to the good porn soon enough. Thanks to "the fabulous beta" and for the band to which the chapter title steals its name. Hope you all enjoy. Oh, and I own nothing, nothing, nothing.**_  
_**

**_ -----_**

**_ Wrapped in silent elegance_**

**_ Beautifully broken down_**

**_ As illusions burst_**

**_ Too late to learn from experience_**

**_ Too late to wonder how_**

**_ To finish first_**

_- Zero 7- "Home"_

**_ -------_**

He would be the first to admit, though not aloud to a soul, that he will always have a soft spot for Addison. He may curse her name and hate the ground she so proudly stomps those ridiculously high heels onto, but she is Addison. They have a history, albeit very complicated one, a history nonetheless. There were many good times that he has now come to acknowledge shouldn't be faulted to hide behind all of the bad things that happened later in the marriage. There was blame everywhere in the end. They have seen each other at their respective bests and worsts. He can't really use this reasoning as the "why" that leads to him marching down the hotel hallway but he figures if he has to he will throw it out.

He knocks rapidly on the door and hears slight shuffles inside.

"Damn it", she swears under her breath as she quietly pads toward the door once again. This time she managed to get a whole suitcase packed and feels slightly proficient as she slowly pulls the door open to see her ex-husband. Other than the obvious emotion of complete confusion she notices a little twinge pull at her heart. She is going to chalk it up to the wine she has been pounding back as she was chucking clothing pile after clothing pile into their new and temporary Louis Vuitton home.

"Derek." She muses as he shifts his weight carelessly from foot to foot.

"Addison." He moves by her and through the slightly opened door.

"Oh please by all means, come right on in. Make yourself at home." He doesn't respond as he slowly looks around the room. "So Mark called in the cavalry?"

"I haven't spoken to Mark. Are you moving?" He makes his way through the mess and takes a seat on the bed that they once used to share.

"What are you doing here?" She follows him but decides to stand in front of him rather than put herself in the compromising position of sitting so close to a man that she isn't sure she is really over yet. They have a history after all and for the life of her she can't forget.

"Smooth transition."

"Always been my strong suit. What are you doing Derek?"

"Are you moving?"

"Answer my question." She is beginning to grow frustrated with his charades and sighs loudly enough so that he will hopefully take the hint.

"Answer mine." He retorts quickly and then takes in a deep breath before starting his explanation. "Meredith and I broke up. I think that that is what happened anyway."

"Oh so you come running to me. Gee thanks Derek, I feel so loved and worthwhile." She wishes that she didn't mean the last part nearly as much as she feels like she does.

"No. I just…I…didn't know what to do. I needed a friend." His voice has dropped considerably and his vulnerability is starting to shine through.

"I am not your friend. I am your hated ex-wife who you have fun mocking every time you get a chance. Mark is your friend. He is in room 2267. Go find him because I couldn't care less about your relationship issues with the 12 year old." She takes the obviously dig at the intern she honestly doesn't hate merely to keep up appearances.

"Mark is not my friend."

"He is too. Whether you want to admit it now or three years from now, he is your best friend. Not even I could ruin that." She instantly regrets bringing up the affair because it always sends them into a weird downward spiral of a fight.

Choosing to ignore her obvious remark, "Now answer my question. Are you moving?" He takes a glance around at the matching suitcases and tries not to imagine that she is going where he thinks she is going.

"I am moving to L.A. I really don't want to whole world knowing that I am going so just keep it to yourself if you can manage that."

"L.A." He tosses the world around in his head and tries to grasp onto the reality. He silently curses himself for drinking way too much scotch before making his trek over here.

"L.A." She repeats for him again. She finally decides that it is safe to take a seat and perches herself tediously on the edge of the comfortable king size bed.

"Why would you do that?" It's honest and he means it although he is pretty sure he is about to incite some sort of riot from her.

"Why not? I have nothing here Derek. I didn't get the job. Congratulations to you I am assuming are in order. I have no friends, no family, no anything. I need change. I need an opportunity to change and I don't have that here. I was pegged and labeled from the get go and…..I deserve better than that."

"I think I played a major role in all of that."

"I am sure you did. Although the Satan thing I think I kind of like. It's oddly fitting."

"Yes it is." They share a small laugh that serves to break the uncomfortable silence that has been piercing through them for the last six years.

"So…about the whiny little intern. You should go talk to her. You may have misinterpreted something. You were always a little over dramatic with the relationship thing." She loves how she, the owner of a very doomed relationship status, has become the go to person on all significant other related topics.

"No. I am right about this one. I told her…I said that if she couldn't do it then to let me out. She let me go. That's what happened at the wedding, or non-wedding." The words are starting to slur out of his mouth and his guard has fallen shamelessly somewhere around his tangled laces.

"Oh." A small sense of excited butterflies swoop over her stomach and sadly she is happy someone else is having the same awful day she is.

"It is over."

She is quick to bolster him, as she always is, that everything will be ok and he will be fine as long as he just keeps on doing what he is doing. He takes in her words of praise wondering how in the world she could not hate him. Quickly and before he can reason it his head falls onto her shoulder and her arm wraps around his back and offers reassurance in the form of a light circular pattern made by her fingertips.

"Things will be alright. You and Meredith will pull it together and be really happy. I know it." Unfortunately she has always known it, she just wasn't willing to concede it so soon before.

"How can you know that?" He offers as he peers up trying to see her hair covered eyes.

She shrugs, "I see the way you look at her. She has to mean something special to you or you wouldn't have sought out advice from me of all people."

"I don't hate you."

"I was pretty sure you did. But none of that really matters now. You have her, and I have…" She falters because she really doesn't have anything to end her well meaning speech with. So she goes with, "L.A."

"Yeah, I guess. I just don't think we are going to make it. I want it more than she does."

"She will learn. You have to give people a chance Derek. You need to learn how to do that because people aren't perfect and you can't fix everything no matter how hard you try. Give her the time to sort through things accordingly and she will run right back to you."

"I used to think you were….Perfect, that is." He removes his head and takes in her sullen appearance which does nothing to match the comforting tone of her voice. He still sees her the way he used to and he just can't shake her. He loves Meredith, he really does and for the life of him he will never be able to figure out how it all lead where it was going.

"You were wrong. A lot actually." She is caught off guard by the glint in his eyes and before she can react his soft, warm, and always inviting lips are on hers. Taken aback by the kiss she pulls away for air before he starts in again. This time it is more passionate, needier. "Derek, stop." He continues on slowly working his way from her mouth to her ear. He nibbles gently in the one spot she loves the most before breaking away to look at her.

"You really want me to stop?" Clearly he has to ask but really has no intention of halting their comfort seeking quest.

It's a good question and the answer should be blaring in front of her but instead she says nothing and he once again resumes his attack on her neck while slowly peeling away layer after layer of clothing. This will be a new form of shame when the light breaks through the thick hotel curtains in the early morning. She is about to be used again, for whatever reason suits the man on top of her. Then left for the intern, again. It is a great pattern that does nothing to aide her ever faltering self-esteem.

"Wait, Derek." She tries to form coherent thoughts as he is pulling away her blue cotton shirt and lightly kissing her stomach. She knows where this is going and how it will all end.

He looks up quickly. "Yeah?"

"Are you sure about this?" He merely nods and then poses the same question to her.

"I'm always sure about us." The answer to his question would actually make no sense if she took the time to stop and think about it but right now his lips are making their way up her thigh and she loves how he works his tongue in that slow circular pattern. She relents to the act and suddenly feels him slide into her. His thrusting is long, deep, and all too familiar. She tangles her hands into his hair while trying to stay in the moment. Her mind is swirling with all the pleasure and pain this will bring to tomorrow. He finishes before she does and sends her into an orgasm that only he could have brought on. She murmurs his name softly and tentatively when he collapses breathing heavy on top of her.

"Derek. You should go." She manages to get out while knowing that she would love nothing more than to spend the night cuddled into him but this has already taken a horrible turn and she doesn't need a reason to stay.

He pulls out of her and rolls onto his side searching her expression for an answer. She looks anguished; unexcited about what happened so he stands and begins gathering his clothes. He dresses quickly as she pulls a sheet up around her flushed body and tries not to watch what had been hers for so long. What she just participated in was inexcusable and it just goes to add another check on the list of numerous regrets she has made in this watery city.

"I guess this is goodbye." She shrugs as he pulls his coat back on.

"Never goodbye with us. Thank you for tonight." He takes a slight pause before adding in, "I know what you are thinking and don't. Just don't over analyze it; take it for what it was meant to be." He stops in front of the wooden frame before turning back to her. "I hope you find what you are looking for Addie."

He opens the door and as soon as it clicks closed she lets the tears pour down her face as the sobs explode from her chest. One thing is noticeably missing from their escapade, the twinge, that sparkle in her heart is gone. She doesn't love him anymore. It shouldn't be that simple after all that they shared and yet it is. While it should fill her with relief in knowing that she can really move on all it seems to do is prompt more tears. Reaching for the kleenex on the nightstand she relents to the fact that that chapter of her life is over. The third of her life that she assumed ended when she found the black panties and signed several pieces of paper has finally come to a close. She needs something change before she falls back into a very self-destructive path and L.A. is looking better and better every heart wrenching second.

**_-----_**

A/N 2: I know, I know. Not the goodbye sex everyone was hoping for but making her fall into bed with Mark seemed like the easy way out. He has to work a little.

* * *


	4. From a heart that has suffered

A/N: So another chapter up. That's all I've got and a major thanks to my beta who helped my save this chapter from the cutting room floor. Enjoy and let me know what you think. Thanks!

**_-----_**

**_Morning sadness  
So we meet again  
Pack your bags 'cause we're leaving  
It's the only way  
To untie the pain  
From a heart that has suffered  
It's the only way  
To untie the pain  
From a mind that is strangled  
_**_-Madina Lake- "Morning Sadness"__  
**-----**_

Awaking early after nearly no sleep has left her a little more than cranky. Her body aches from last nights adventures and serves to torture her in the remembrance of shaking limbs and worst goodbyes in the history of the world. She is thankful however that no one else stopped by last night, and thankful that Mark had enough sense to stay away.

She searches through the remaining clothes in the closet and decides upon something simple for her last day. Heading towards the bathroom she can't help but take one last look at the bed that has seen more tears than any other piece of furniture in her life.

**_  
-----_**

Slowly her shaking hands disappear into her suitcase and drag out the formal resignation that was typed between patients, surgeries, and charts just the day before.

"Addison." Her mentor shakes his head in sadness but not disbelief. He places her resignation letter on his desk while trying to get things to settle in his spinning head.

"You said it best Richard. If I need a job to give me a life then I either need a new job or a new life. In this case I pick both."

"I know what I said, thank you. I just didn't assume it would be the very next day. Have you thought about this at all? Do you know what kind of a position this puts me in?" He motions for her to join him on the couch that used to occupy his own sleeping place.

Sitting she relaxes slightly and pulls one knee over the other clasping her hands upon them. "I am sure. I have thought about it since the moment I set foot in the airport that night."

"I could hold you to your contract you know."

"You wouldn't keep me here." But the look in his eyes say something entirely different, "Would you?"

"We had an agreement Addison." His voice tries to gain strength and dexterity.

"I know that, and believe me I am sorry. Leaving two great hospitals in one year for personal reasons is not exactly something that I want my resume to have to embrace but I need to do this. I just can't stand to be here anymore. I am sorry though, you have done a lot for me and I don't want you to think that it wasn't appreciated while I was making a circus out of your OR floor." She means every single word, especially the bit about the circus because she has done more crazy things here than she ever would have provided she stayed in New York.

"Life is hard. You do things that you never thought you could see yourself doing, things that I could never see you doing. Honestly." He pauses ever so slightly.  
"Honestly the things and stunts you pulled while you were out here were less than desirable. Because of those personal issues your work suffered and I know that you know that as well as I do. We had many squabbles this last year. Please forward your resignation to the board and sign off on all of your patients by 4 o'clock this afternoon. You will have until tomorrow to get your things out and your paperwork finished."

"Thank you Richard." She can't seem to find a way to make the situation any lighter and she can't find a way through his rage so she merely stands up and offers her hand.

He shakes his head and places his hand in his pocket. "I never thought you would disappoint me like this Addison." He turns back to the paperwork on his desk and she reaches the door before the tears make their way down her face.

_**-----**_

She spends the rest of the day in a blur of c-sections, charts, and ignorance of the gossip around her. Seems like someone couldn't keep their mouths shut and her dream of a quiet and quick exit is short lived.

"So you are giving up?"

"Excuse me?"

"Heard you were headed out, sad to see that you can't handle it anymore." Alex leans up against the counter that she is trying to focus her concentration on.

"It really isn't any of your business but, yes, I am leaving. Today is my last day. You I am sure are thrilled to be released from my service so you can go gallivant with your patient."

Turning quiet he faces her quickly, "I never found her. I didn't want her, you were wrong."

"That seems to be a common theme in my life." She turns her back on him and makes her way for the next patient's room hoping that he isn't trying to say what she thinks he is.

"Dr. Montgomery!" He is pacing after her trying his best to avoid a scene as she hastily re-routes herself and enters an on-call room.

She slams the door shut and rests her head against the back of it taking slow, deep deliberate breaths. Suddenly she is being pushed forward as Alex storms in behind her.

"You run away from everything?"

"We have sex in an on-call room for what 20 minutes and now suddenly you think you know me?" It may have stung a little but she is tired of the men in her life.

"I know you." He goes to the bed and sits slumping forward with his hands on his knees.

"You have no idea. I am still your boss and you have no right to speak to me this way. Good day Dr. Karev." She turns and heads for the door.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?" She replies in an annoyed tone as her patience is wearing thin.

"Nothing, never mind. I'm out of line as usual."

"No, ask me. Go ahead. We have already blurred the professional and personal line so ask." She stomps her heel into the floor and takes a step forward towering over him.

"How do you pretend that nothing happened? I mean how do you go about pretending that everything in your life is exactly the way you want it? How do you march around here all smug knowing what you know?" It is a little deep for him even. He decides that since she is leaving tomorrow there is no harm, no foul. Besides if she ever told anyone they wouldn't believe her and she doesn't seem to be the type to randomly throw this situation into a conversation.

She hesitates briefly before replying, "It keeps me sane to pretend. Living in a world that isn't ripping at the seams keeps me sane at work. I have to be able to do my job Karev, simple as that." She turns around and quietly opens the door and steps back out knowing that she really doesn't do as good of a job as her stupid intern tends to believe.

"Simple as that." He allows the rest of his body to lie against his knees and sighs heavily. He wants to let go and connect with someone, with anything and his only chance walked out the door.

**_-----_**

He watches from the nurse's station as Addison makes her way out of the on-call room followed a short time later followed by Karev. He thinks he is having some sort of awful deja-vu moment that he can't shake out of. He contemplates beating the shit out of the young intern right there in the hall but thinks better of it because he still has to go to work everyday. So instead he rounds the corner following her retreating figure only to find Derek standing at the end of the hall gently holding her arm as she looks away from him. He can't catch a break so he watches from his place shielded by a rack of medical supplies.

"Derek, please I have patients."

"I'm sorry. I want you to know that I am sorry, so sorry Addison. All of it. All of the crap, the hell I put you through before and after New York. I'm sorry."

"A little late for apologies Derek."

"I understand that but I still had to say it."

"Okay then. I should go this time. Patients."

"Right." He states as he lets go of the lab coated arm he is holding but she doesn't move. She stares into his eyes intently and while shaking her head ever so slightly her lips part into a smile. "What?"

"It is funny how things end."

He nods in agreeance, not exactly sure he is following. "Yeah, I guess it is."

She takes one small step backwards and simply states, "I don't love you anymore."

"Ok." He tentatively adds.

"I thought I always would and I mean I love you, I do but I am not in love with you. You should be with Meredith. I can't believe I am saying that to you. Anyway I should go, stay in touch Derek."

"I will, I promise."

"Don't promise me things, it is safer that way."

"Deal." She stays put for a moment and he sees Mark approaching them as he begins his journey down the hall free of a little baggage. He stops just short of the corner in order to observe the OR Board and decides to stay there momentarily.

"Addie?" His throat unintentionally cracks as she keeps walking. He has run through the things he could say to her about five hundred times and has decided that he may as well just let it out. Reminding her that she broke the bet will only make her angry and embarrassed, telling her that she is stupid to leave will start a fight in the middle of the hospital, and while he isn't sure this tactic won't start a nuclear war it is all he has got. "Addison, please stop." She does, to his surprise and stands within Derek's earshot waiting for him to catch up.

"What Mark? I am just trying to work through my last day peacefully and instead I am met with all kinds of resistance. So what is it that you need?"

"I don't want you to leave." He shuffles his tennis shoes on the tile making a squeaking sound.

"I have to leave."

"No. You could stay, we can be friends. Please just stay, I really need you around here." It is an open statement and he is scared that she will do her usual best to rip out his heart and puncture it with one of her heels.

"I have to go. You don't listen, I have to. You will be fine."

"I'm afraid I won't be. You don't have to go. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

She takes a step closer to the fragile man before her and drops her voice slightly so that the nurses who are watching intently won't be able to make out any of her words. "Mark, this city drives me insane. I wake up every morning and get into my car hoping that someone will slip on the inevitably wet roads and slam into my car so that I don't have to keep breathing for this worthless life. I want to jump off the roof when I go up there for lunch and sometimes I secretly hope that someone will just pull the trigger already because I am living for nothing. This is it, this is my life. I have to leave."

"Yeah." He doesn't understand or agree but is merely interrupting up her speech a little so she doesn't break down. It helps he notices but then again he notices a lot of things about her that she will never get to know.

"I feel like I have a death wish and that isn't right. Is it stupid, self-pitying, and ridiculous? Sure, but I feel that way and I shouldn't. If I leave I give myself the chance to enjoy life again because right now, here in this hospital, I am on auto-pilot saying all the right things and operating to occupy my time until I have to go home to a hotel and drink away my sorrows." She steps back hoping that he is catching some form of a drift.

"You shouldn't feel that way. You deserve better than that." She does; she always has but she just never had the right man to show her that. "All I can do is ask you to stay. It doesn't have to be like that from now on, I swear."

"No, I won't. Goodbye Mark." She turns and walks toward Derek. She joins him in his quest of searching the board in hopes of amusement.

"Damn it." He scowls under his breath as he begins walking forward again. He is going to have to say it. He really didn't want to. "Addison." He calls out because she is still a little ways off but she doesn't move her head or acknowledge his presence. "Addison, I love you." She turns her head in horror to meet his eyes as the rest of the floor has started to pay attention to the scene. "You can't leave because I love you. Still. Always. If you go…..I just need a chance to show you how much I love you. Please give me that."

She stalks three feet forward to meet him defiantly before she holds up her hand. "Don't say that."

Just to annoy her he continues on and mouths the words again before his cheek is meet with the palm of her right hand. "Ouch." He grabs at his face and rubs the spot that she smacked too lightly.

"You are a big baby. It didn't hurt that much." She stops and tries to align he next statement correctly. "And don't say that, it isn't true and you know it." She pleads, "Let me be."

He sets his eyes until she will look at him. "I meant every single word. You shouldn't beat people for saying they love you, it isn't very polite. Your mother should have taught you better than that."

"Well she didn't, so go away." Her tone is fierce and he knows better than to push the subject any farther. He turns away defeated but still hoping that his message got through. He has about a one in a million shot of her actually sticking around but the risk is always worth it.

She heads back down the hall reaching Derek once again who adds, "You know, for what it is worth, even though I still hate him….. There is nothing quite as sincere as despair. He means it. I know he does."

"Well I don't love him either." She tromps off to find her next patient trying to will the gods that be to let the last two hours of her day go perfectly because she can't handle anymore before she boards her plane tonight. "Despair is sincere." She pushes he mouth together and forces the air out while digging for a pen in her pocket. "Right."

_**-----**_

She awakens to a loud ringing sound that can only be her wake up call. She rubs her eyes, tries to get the hair off of her face and reaches for the phone. She politely thanks the man and hangs up looking around her near empty room before the sadness sets in.

She spends her last day at the hospital outright avoiding anyone who dares to cross her path. She shares, to her relief, a tearful goodbye with Richard filled with promises of keeping in touch and sentiments meant for only their ears.

She finds herself periodically peering over at Mark to make sure that the glowing red mark her hand left was simply in a dream. It was all a dream, he isn't talking to her today and Derek isn't anywhere to be found. Not that she would tell him that after last night she doesn't love him but still she feels that a proper goodbye should be in place before she leaves. He is, after all, the entire reason she stayed out here and goodbye sex isn't going to do it on this one.

The hallucination that took place the night before has lead her to finishing her work early and trying to get out of that hospital with as much dignity as she can muster. She ignores Callie and Miranda and she hides behind charts after requesting that she not have an intern for the day. As she finishes up her paperwork and puts her things into a box she feels a sense of melancholy wash over her. Never in her life did she think that things would head down this road, but it is time to cut her loses and move on with life. The new plan starts tonight.

* * *


	5. Just one more plane ride and it's done

A/N: Alright so I know I have readers here, anyone want to review me...pretty please. Thanks to my beta...and enjoy. 

**_-----_****_I've got my things, I'm good to go  
You met me at the terminal  
Just one more plane ride and it's done  
We stood like statues at the gate  
Vacation's come and gone too late  
There's so much sun where I'm from  
I had to give it away, had to give you away_**  
- Jack's Mannequin- "Bruised"  
**_-----_**

"Is that it lady?" The cab driver poses the question as he heaves the last suitcase that is flying with her into the overflowing trunk.

"Yes, that is it." She toes around him carefully and hops into the back of the cab.

He climbs in the front clearly exhausted and turns the key so the engine will roar to life. As he catches up with the traffic she watches as the lights jiggle and bounce in an uncohesive dance off the dark bay in the background. There are a few things she liked about Seattle and the lights were one of them. Growing up in New York with all of the sights, sounds, smells, and illuminations gave her the not only the ability to be a surprisingly harder sleeper than her ex-husband but the ability to take comfort in the lights because they meant that there was a life out there somewhere. She just needed to go about finding it.

He slams the trunk shut once again and she hands him more money than is necessary for his work that he so begrudgingly put in. She finds her way into the ticket counter and picks up her boarding passes. The last flight out of Seattle tonight has demanded a layover in some town in Oregon and she is a little less than excited about having an hour and a half to kill in some unknown airport when all she wants to do is snap her fingers and be in her new house.

**_------_**

"Have you seen Addison?" He asks unsure if he actually wants the answer from the man in front of him.

"Not since last night. Why?" Derek asks while trying to act busier than everyone else on the floor.

"No reason. Last night?" Again something he may not want answered.

"Uh…well, Yes. Not that it is any of your business but I went and saw Addie last night just to talk and-"

"Addie? Since when do you call her Addie again? I thought you were going with Devil, Satan, whore who ruined your life, adulterous bitch-"

Grimacing at the names he used to reserve for talking behind her back he quickly lifts his head up to the other man who won't stop rambling. "Listen Mark, I know I used to call her all of those and more that you haven't heard but we are finally getting to a place where we are okay and she is Addie again. Is there a problem for you somewhere in there? Does it interfere with stealing what was mine away?"

"No problems for me. Besides I couldn't steal something that didn't want to be yours in the first place." It is going to turn ugly, he just has a feeling.

His anger rising, "You don't know anything about which you are speaking of. Drop it Mark, drop the whole thing. She and I- we had something and then we stopped, the fact that you somehow got wound up in it was merely a coincidence."

"I saved you. Whether you admit it today, tomorrow, next week, or in fifty years we both know, I. Saved. You."

"Saved me from what? Know what your problem is Mark?"

"You and your damn escapades with interns?" He quips.

Never one to have his thunder stolen Derek plunges forward. "No, you like to hear yourself talk too much. Stop making this about you."

"You were in a lousy marriage Derek. Both of you. I saved you, it wasn't working and then suddenly everything was my fault and you were off the hook. You aren't the real martyr here you are the villain. I'm your sidekick, your wingman, your best friend, your brother. I did my job now just let it go already." He turns hotly on his heels and heads for his locker before stumbling into Miranda Bailey who was watching the whole scene.

"Sorry." He states while looking down after literally running into the short woman.

"Now there's something I never thought I'd hear out of your stupid mouth. Where's Addison? I need a consult."

"I don't know."

"What did you two do this time?"

"Nothing." He states while trying to get past her impeding presence.

"Uh-huh." She doesn't believe him, never has. He is merely a self absorbed jock who thinks he can get any woman he wants, and if it weren't for the tall red-head proving him wrong constantly she might have taken it upon herself to make sure his life was hell.

"I need to go." He excuses himself quickly and makes his way into the attending locker room. He quietly searches the locker she rarely uses, as she keeps everything in her shoe box of an office, and finds it to be empty. He wasn't expecting anything else but it was worth a shot. He gathers his coat and rushes off to the hotel to see if maybe the love of his life has beaten him to drinking the day away.

**_----- _**

Upon finding security surprisingly easy to get through she reaches for a journal out of her carry-on and quickly begins scanning the pages for something interesting. Years of hard work and dedication have gotten her published many times, as well as begged for articles on the cases she has seen through the years. She has written pieces for many journals on the more high profile cases but lately finds herself wondering if she will be able to handle what she is assuming will be a rather slow pace at a private practice. She lays the journal down on her crossed legs and reaches for her phone. She quickly dials a familiar number and hears it pick up on the third ring. "Naomi? I have a surprise for you."

She finishes the call through blurs of excited sentences and a few small laughs and then resorts back to the boring articles on subjects she really doesn't care to learn anything about anymore. Being a doctor means being a long time student and teacher, neither of which she has enjoyed much of lately.

**_-----_**

After a less than dismal appearance at the stupid board meeting where Richard announced he will be sticking around for a little longer than anticipated he rushes out the door and heads for his original destination.

He finds her hotel room quiet and is guessing that she may have gone out for a drink or is perhaps swimming off today's tensions downstairs in the gym. He quickly searches the hotel and tries her cell phone yet again only to be sent to voicemail. On his way back up to his room he gets caught in the elevator with Callie Torres, or O'Malley, or whatever it is that everyone is calling her these days.

"Hey." She opens the floor for discussion.

"Hi."

"So did you hear? Well of course you heard, you must have by now. You are Mark and well Seattle Grace is like the hospital gossip epicenter of the world."

"Spill it Torres. I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Addison resigned this morning. Apparently today was her last day. She must have been doing a damn good job at hiding because I didn't find her all day…"

As she rambles on he decides quickly that she was and probably is the girl in the back of the classroom who ate her hair. Mind you, he was the boy in the back sulking because he hated his parents and wanted to move in with Derek who sat proudly in the front competing for every correct answer with who would've have guessed to be Addison. Classroom analogies aside he quickly hits the stop button canceling both of their plans and makes the elevator head back down the lobby.

"What are you doing?" She gasps at the sudden change in motion.  
Something I should have a long time ago, going to the airport."

"You think she is there?" She pauses leaning back against the polished mirror inlayed into the elevator wall that he has grown to hate in the last few months.

"I don't know but I have to go." He steps out onto the marble lobby floor and rushes to find a taxi in a town where you can never find one on duty.

**_-----_**

A cup of coffee, two boring articles, one phone conversation, several times of hitting the ignore button on her cell, and the plane is finally getting ready to board. She holds down the off button and shoves the technology into her purse. She stands straightening her skirt and steadying herself on her heels and she smiles as she takes one good last look at Seattle out the window. A weight lifts as she realizes she doesn't ever have to come back if she doesn't want to.

**_-----_**

He throws money at the annoying cabbie, who wanted to debate Red Sox/Yankees stats for the year, through his window and bids him a welcome good bye.

He starts for the terminal realizing that he is going to need a ticket to get through security. Rushing to the only open counter he ends up buying a one thousand dollar ticket to Orlando hoping that he will catch her in time. He hurries through the check points, forgetting to empty his pockets which leads to a fun pat down, and makes his way through the winding alley of gates to find her plane boarding already.

**_-----_**

The blaring sound of the woman seated at the desk in front of an almost empty terminal catches his attention. "Section 3 for United Airlines flight 5758 may now board." He in enveloped in a swarm of people anxious to get their seats before the people in front of them and for a moment all he can see is a mix of colorful clothing and the disastrously ugly airport carpet.

**_-----_**

She hasn't flown with this company in years and she finds it rather ridiculous that first class has to board last. She sits huffing while the call for the third section is sounded and masses of people stand. She scuffs her heel along the ugly carpet and looks down at the hem of her skirt waiting impatiently for a turn to start her life anew.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Finally he sees her pegged behind a screaming child. She is picking her skirt in a very un-Addison move. He heads toward her weaving through the groups of people only to find himself thinking that he feels like he is in some ridiculous romantic comedy that she would have forced him to watch. He plods around the screaming kids and suddenly has a moment of self-consciousness and is terrified of what she is going to do when she finds him chasing her yet again. He stops momentarily and then decides it is definitely worth it. He presses forward.

"Addison?" The words barely escape his mouth. She doesn't look up and he thinks he may have said it too quietly because she doesn't generally ignore her own name. It isn't popular enough for her to assume that the person would be talking to someone different so he tries again. "Addie."

She looks up quickly at the sound of her name and finds Mark standing in front of her clutching a boarding pass in one hand and a single daffodil in the other. "Mark." It is a statement, a question, an observation, and a longing.

"Uhh..I-I just wanted you to have this." He holds out the flower hoping she will take it and not smack him upside the head with it.

She stands up next to him and raises an eyebrow perfectly. "You drove all the way to the airport, went through security, and found my gate to give me this?" She takes the limp flower and holds it delicately between two fingers before giving it a twirl.

"Yeah. Something like that." He exhales deeply and watches her every movement as she twists the stem.

"Mark, I should have told you that I was leaving but-"

She is cut off by another announcement, they one she has been waiting for. "We are now boarding all first class and business passengers for flight 5758 to Portland, Oregon."

"Addison." He pleads as she quickly begins picking her things up off the floor. She hoists the carry-on over her shoulder and takes a step towards him closing the gap between them. She is invading his personal bubble and her sweet smell is as intoxicating as ever. "Addison. I think-no I know, I know that I love you. I am in love with you. Still."

She shifts her weight adjusting her bag before quipping, "I know, but I... Mark, I can't do this. Not here, not now."

Taken by surprise, "Oh. I thought maybe if you knew-"

"Then I would stay?" He nods and takes a step backwards. "No, Mark. I have to go. Let me go this time, ok?"

He nods again before leaning in and capturing her lips in his own for the last time. She holds back momentarily before leaning forward and embracing the warm kiss. He pulls back first watching her eyes flutter open. He thinks it is a little ridiculous that it has all come down to this but he starts in anyway, "I'll let you go. I will do my best…" His voice drops off into a mumble so that those around him can't understand the ridiculously romantic crap he is spewing her direction. "…because you are...permitted."

"Permitted?" She recites more than intrigued by a man who is always a little less than giving.

He shrugs and tries to explain in a way that doesn't reveal that he has been thinking about this non-stop for the last 30 something hours. "You get to go on. You have the right to have a life of your own choosing without me tagging along and ruining everything."

As the nervous rambling begins to take place in her stomach she tries to explain, "You don't ruin everything. Well, you ruin a lot of things but that isn't the point here. I just need a change of pace. Too many bad things have happened in this town, you know?"

"I know. I just have one request."

"Alright." She takes another glance around at the empty waiting area and hopes that he makes this fast.

"Don't call me."

"What?"

"Don't call me. I can't get over you if I talk to you, not yet anyway. Maybe later. And don't call when you are drunk asking me to come down and save you. Leave the rescuing to someone else so I can move on. I think that I deserve that." He thinks it may have come out a little rougher than he intended because his only point was that this is going to be so much harder on him than she thinks.

With one big deep breath she offers, "I can do that I guess." She steps forward giving him one last hug and then stalks off to board the aircraft.

Long after her plane has taken off Mark is still sitting in the seat that she was occupying trying desperately how to figure out going on living with out her. He reasons with himself saying that she needs this more than she needs him because it will hopefully make her happy once again and then throws himself back into how they could've have had it all together before. After the mind wrestling has settled hours later he stands, stretches, and heads back to the hotel to do some more reflection, this time perhaps with the help of scotch.

* * *


	6. I'll get as far as I can go

A/N: Alright after some slight persuasion I have continued to keep cross-posting this. Really I was only trying to make sure that I had readers so I wasn't clogging up the board for no good reason. Reviews please...I give cookies!

_**-----**_

**_All I ever needed  
Someone to believe in  
Anything that I could do  
Maybe there's something beautiful  
Hidden deep in my bones  
I'll get as far as I can go  
Where I run, you never will know  
When you're left there lying alone  
Know I'm never coming home  
_**_-Crossfade- "Never Coming Home"_

**_-----_**

One short week later, four meetings with realtors, seven open houses, and countless cups of coffee while pouring over reality listings Addison finds her new home on the beach. She quickly begins the ever annoying job of unpacking everything from her previous life. Her first notion was to literally throw everything from New York away but thought better of it because really it wasn't all that bad. Moving boxes to their respective rooms and slowly pouring over all that her life had been was, in the beginning, daunting and painful but now she is reveling in the old memories and she honestly feels like she is beginning to find the person she lost all of those years ago.

She rips the tape off a box labeled kitchen to find the old china that they very seldom used when they were together. Derek hated the pattern (or the entire thought of owning china), she hated the color scheme and it was all an incredibly inconsiderate gift. She kicks the box aside and reaches for the next one to discover the ever useful blender. Glancing at the clock and realizing that. while it is her day off, it is probably still too early to start making drinks.

She tiptoes her way to the stereo and turns on her favorite music that her ex-husband once hated. It has been years but her feet still find the beat effortlessly and her voice the words without concentration as she heads for the living room.

Her hands lift an old keepsake out of the box. Another gift from a wedding that probably never should have happened. She hastily sets it back into the box and decides that perhaps hanging pictures would be a better plan of attack. Fumbling through more pictures, her old life slaps her in the face again this time in the form of a graduation picture. She is stuck between the two men in her life and looking back she laughs a little because it really should have been some sort of sign, then and there.

**_------_**

One ridiculously long week later, five nights of sleeping in an on-call room to avoid going home, endless cups of scotch, and no new women to speak of and Mark thinks he may just be dying without her. He is suddenly regretting not asking her to call because there isn't much he wouldn't give just to hear her voice again. He feels sad and pathetic in ways he hasn't felt since he was 7 and struck out in his little league game effectively ending his team's hopes and dreams of becoming the district champions. He thinks of asking Derek how he is doing, dreaming for some form of bond to come back but thinks better of it. Derek doesn't care in the slightest, at least from what he can tell. Life is good with Meredith once again or so the gossip mills say.

He tosses from side to side on the top bunk in on-call room 6. There is someone below him trying to sleep but he really couldn't care less in this moment. He flips over onto his back with a long exhausted sigh coming out of his mouth. He swears he hasn't slept a wink since she left. This led to him being kicked out of surgery and sent to sleep by the same old returning chief who hates him but no one understands why Mark isn't sleeping. One wouldn't think that he could become so affected by a woman that he couldn't muster the energy to close his eyes and relax so he doesn't answer when they ask.

Rolling onto his side yet again his mind is stuck like a broken record on the words he said to her that night in the airport. He said he loved her right? Wait, yes and then she said she didn't love him and was leaving anyway. Another dagger piercing his heart and he begins to feel his eyes well with a form of moisture they haven't felt since her original departure almost a year ago. He wills himself to stop before he even starts because he is in a public area and twists over onto his stomach to muffle his heavy and ragged breathing.

"Could you stop up there? Or just go to sleep Mark, for the love of god the world isn't ending." Derek mutters out from under the pillow he is holding over his face.

"Derek?" He doesn't have to ask. They grew up together; he knows the sound of his voice better than his own.

"Yeah. Go to sleep. You are driving me insane down here and I only have an hour before my next surgery."

"Grey wearing you out?" He attempts to joke.

"Right, that's it. We've been having make up sex non-stop for the last four days and I really need to sleep."

"Really?" He isn't really interested but figures he isn't getting any sleep so he may as well try a conversation.

More than annoyed he removes his pillow and answers, "No. Go to sleep!"

"I can't." He aches out from his viewpoint and tries to glance down at Derek below him.

"Why the hell not? You look like shit. You honestly look like you haven't slept in days."

"I haven't." He peers his head over the railing again and tries to stem the feeling of being in one of their six year old sleep-overs when Derek would coax Mark to sleep after he got down spilling his guts on how awful his family was.

"Well then what is the freakin' problem? Close your eyes, take a deep breathe and relax."

"Don't you think I have tried that? Don't you think I want to sleep? I am exhausted Derek…but I can't."

Catching on slowly but surely he quips, "If you open your mouth one more time and tell me that this is about Addison leaving I will come up there and personally beat the lunacy out of you." He receives no reply. "Hello? Did you finally fall asleep?"

"No." He states as he flips back over onto his side facing the wall and folding his arms in a huff of movement.

"Well then why aren't you answering me?"

"You told me not to tell you it was all about Addison, so I can't say anything because it is, in fact, all about Addison."

"It's always about Addison. You are ridiculous. She is gone. Gone Mark, not coming home. Let it go. Go find a nursing student to screw or something."

"Not interested."

"Listen to you. You sound like a sullen five year old that dropped his ice cream on the sidewalk." He remarks while conceding to the fact that there will be no sleeping.

"Well I feel like a sullen thirty-nine year old who just lost the love of his life. Shut up, shut up before you even say it. Yeah, yeah. Your wife. I got the memo, a thousand times so leave me alone and go find your own on-call room to sleep in."

Derek rises before turning back to the man holding his knees on the top bunk. He reaches out and places his hand on his back in a very uncharacteristic move. He hates to see him hurting, well actually he is kind of welcome to the idea of her ripping out his heart too, but a brother is a brother. "It will be okay Mark. You'll get over her, move on, and find the real one that has been waiting for you. She isn't that great, trust me. Just give it time." He heads for the door quickly and releases himself from his old best-friend's personal hell.

"She is spectacular and you never noticed. Nothing is alright." He whispers before sitting up and knocking his head on the wall in an attempt to focus.

**_-----_**

"Red." Pete calls from his place in the lobby.

"Quack." She confirms holding the doors open on the elevator. "Hurry up. I don't want to be late for my first day."

He holds back staying a foot away from the elevator. "I don't know if I want to get in there with you. Who knows what could happen." He lets the smile spread across his mouth as she grows increasingly uncomfortable.

"I am not interested. Now are you getting in or not?" She raises her eyebrows trying to stay calm.

"In." He steps in quickly before Tilly's booming voice takes over.

"Dr. Montgomery you came back so quick. It is good to have you."

"Thank you Tilly." She turns to Pete who is leaning against the back wall. "It's good to be back."

"Uh-huh. I never should have told you about her."

"What?"

"Then you could carry on with your elevator god conversations."

"Who told you- I mean what are you talking about?"

"Ah, Red. You will see. Sometimes we all like to get together and have a laugh over the elevator tapes. Yours has proved quite entertaining."

"Pleasure from other's pain. You are a jackass."

He cocks his head to the side. "True, and from what I've heard about you that is totally your type."

As the doors fling open she steps out with him. "I don't have a type." And for good measure, "And I'm not interested in you at all. Ever. So don't go getting your dreams up at night when you lay alone in your empty bed thinking of me."

"Touché. I can see we are going to have a lot of fun around here."

"We had fun before." Sam scowls before making his way over to Addison and quickly hugging her. "How is our newest addition today?"

Smiling proudly and taking a deep breath of her new life she replies, "Good. I am doing very well."

"You like it so far?" Sam continues on.

"I've only gotten lost about twelve hundred times but I think I am starting to get the hang of things."

"I could take you out and maybe show you around the town if you like." Pete quickly supplies.

"Are you asking me out?" She grins coyly.

"No. He isn't. Excuse us; don't you have an appointment or something?" Sam asks firmly. Pete stalks off in the general direction of his office while adding, "Nope."

"Sorry, you will just have to ignore him for awhile until he takes the hint."

"No consorting Sam, I know. I am big girl. I can take care of myself."

"Good because I would hate to have to beat up a co-worker for breaking my friend's heart."

She winks at him, "I think I can handle it."

"Right, well the third door down on your left would be your new home and I will have Dell bring in all your paperwork. Then we can get rolling. I have some new patients for you this afternoon if you are up for it."

"Definitely." Casually taking long steps on her black heels she makes her way to her office leaving Sam behind to converse with Dell. She walks inside and takes a look around. It is assuredly larger than her office in Seattle and actually has a view. A rush of eagerness runs over her and she can't wait to get back into work. Maybe here she can find the reasons why she became a doctor in the first place again.

**_-----_**

"You better buck up before the chief beats your ass, and if he doesn't I will." Miranda comments while staring up at the board.

"Leave me alone."

"I'm serious here Sloan. Your annoying ass has been so melancholy and calm that even the board thinks that you need Prozac."

"I do not. Why is the board talking about me anyway? Richard made his choice for chief and left me out of it entirely."

She shrugs, "Don't know. Just what I heard. Work on it because she isn't coming back." She turns on her stubby legs and heads for her new batch of interns preparing her lungs for full blown yelling.

"She is right you know." Another voice pops up beside him. This time belonging to the one and only hair-eater extraordinaire.

"Why can't you all stop? It isn't her. It is me. I'm sick." He fakes a cough and continues on. "I don't feel well so forgive me for saving all of my energy for my surgeries."

"You get crabby when she isn't around. I talked to her-"

"I don't care."

"Oh, you do too. Anyway I talked to her yesterday and she said that today is her first day and she is going to call me and tell me how it went. I bet she would like to hear from you after a day like this." Torres offers.

"No she wouldn't. Why don't you go find your annoying husband and talk his ear off?" He turns around and runs directly into Stevens. She is nice to look at on a normal day but he no longer feels the urge. "Uh. Sorry. Dr. Stevens….."

"My fault Dr. Sloan" He runs off leaving her with Callie. "What is his deal lately? I mean I know he can't be upset by the whole Burke running away thing so-"

"I am not your friend. Did you forget?" And with that Callie stalks off.

**_-----_**

"Dr. Montgomery your next patient is in the waiting room." Dell states while poking his head inside the open door.

"Thanks." She smiles and straightens herself out before following him. She grabs the new chart off the counter looking over the name she can't quite place but has an ominous feeling about. Placing the chart under her left arm and against her side she makes her way to the waiting area and calls out, "Mrs. Vechio?"

Rising the woman carefully places a hand on her back and then reaches down and grasps her purse before looking up and stating with rather obvious disdain, "Addison."

"Reagan." She manages as her heart sinks into her stomach. "Please come right this way, I…uh. I-I have some things I need you to fill out before we begin."

The younger woman laughs and makes her way over to her doctor's presence. "Right. Whatever you say Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd."

Smiling about the dig on her marital status Addison remains quiet and escorts the red-headed woman to her office before taking one last deep breath and entering. Today was going to be so much harder than she originally thought.

**_-----_**

He wasn't pleased to have new interns. He wasn't pleased to have a resident blabbering beside him, and he most certainly wasn't pleased with his entire life. His patience was wearing thin as he began his first strokes of the long stitch line.

"So they said he walked out on her." The brunette clamors while standing unsteadily.

"It's true. I saw the whole thing. And then he left, and she left, and Meredith. That's Dr. Grey to you left, and now here we are. Haven't seen him in days. I think he really is gone. Don't you find that weird? I mean who runs away from their own wedding like that?"

I can think of a few people Mark thinks before adding, "Hey Stevens, you think you could bring it down a few octaves before you wake Mrs. Flannigan here." The room explodes in a series of giggles and Izzie blushes slightly.

"Sorry Dr. Sloan. I will keep it down."

"Thanks." He adds while continuing on with his break-neck pace.

**_-----_**

"So what are you doing out here in sunny L.A.? I thought you were off in the land of torrential downpours with your unaffectionate husband." The woman plays while taking a seat in front of her desk.

Addison ignoring her ever annoying existence rounds her wooden desk and takes a seat on the other side before rifling through for the papers she needs her to sign.

"So are you going to answer me? Or are you going to go on pretending we have nothing to do with each other's lives? Because the latter part I have really enjoyed the last few years. Nice that some people can still keep me versed on what is going on in your life since you don't care to share at all."

Trying not to be rattled Addison sets the papers down in front of her with a pen and ask, "Please read through these and sign your consent down at the bottom and then we can go ahead and get started."

"You aren't going to answer me?"

"Rea, I have other patients today so I really need to get this appointment moving. I am sure you understand, or wait no I guess you wouldn't."

"Fine. Pull your snotty Addison remarks, why don't you?"

"I'm not. And that is a disgusting image." She points to the paper. "Here, you missed one."

"Fine not snotty how about spoiled inconsiderate brat? Does that work out better in your head?"

Placing her head in her hands she simply replies, "Please Reagan not today. I have zero tolerance and it is my first day. I would really like to keep my new job-"

"First day? You just moved down here without bothering to call? Not that you have bothered within the last ten years to care what is going on with me-"

"Stop. Just stop." She pulls the papers back and flips through them making sure everything is in order. "Go to exam room 3 right around the corner and I will meet you there. The gown is hanging up, you know the drill."

"A little too well where you are concerned I am afraid." She smirks at her obvious victory in this battle and heads for the door.

Addison tightens her fists and clenches her teeth while forcing out a smile. "I'll be right in." On all of the days, in all of the towns she really wishes that it wasn't that woman who was her first patient. Although she did have a point. If only she would have stayed in touch she could have avoided this whole mess.

**_-----_**

* * *


	7. The wrong turns you took years ago

A/N: So I hated this chapter a lot but it is necessary for the set up of the next where I actually manage to get things rolling. Major thanks to my beta. And a huge thanks for reading! Tell me what you think, pretty please? 

**-----**  
**_The scenery of somewhere else. _**  
**_I wish things were that simple, _**  
**_That leaving solves everything. _**  
**_That departing covers mistakes you've made, _**  
**_The wrong turns you took years ago, _**  
**_That leaving solves everything. _**  
_-Jeniferever- "A Ghost in the Corner of Your Eye"  
_**-----**

Adjusting her book and wineglass simultaneously Addison exhales deeply. One day down and a countless amount to go. Leaving, she thought somehow could fix everything that was so miraculously wrong with her life. In actuality moving hundreds of miles from the ones that know you best is nothing short of grueling. The day had left her drained and anxious to return to the safety of her new home.

Starting her day off Reagan was not a possibility she could have conceived. Curiously she had not taken into account that her sister moved here years ago with her annoying husband. Annoying only because they were perfect in the way she longed that she and Derek could have once been. She shifts her feet under her body and snuggles deeper into the catch while fumbling for the remote. She forces the memories of a better time out of her head and reminds herself that this is it. This is what she chose and the fact that Reagan was present was merely a snag in an otherwise brilliant plan.

Separated by a mere eighteen months Addison was the older of the two even if sometimes she didn't act it. There were times where the tables were reversed and Reagan was taking care of Addison while their mother was out gallivanting and their father at a work conference. She would force cold medicine down her throat and huddle under the covers with her until reading the same book proved to be to exhausting and then they would sleep. They would dominate the house with laughter, and child like innocence, playing games, sharing snacks and generally driving all other inhabitants insane with their vivid imaginations and general mischievous antics.

Regardless of the detail that they were only half sisters and Addison's mother was not Reagan's they were inseparable. To this day she still isn't sure if her sister knows that they aren't full blooded. Chock it up to one of many family secrets she thinks as she finishes off her glass and sets it down on the light wooded coffee table in front of her.

Their meeting was less than stellar. Reagan reaching out ever so subtly and Addison pushing the professional surgeon attitude back in her face. People grow apart. She had learned that first hand and was not in the mood to make an attempt at getting to know her sister while she examined her cervix. In theory, she knows that she would give anything to have her baby sister back but after years of missed holidays and the cold shoulder routine she isn't surprised that god has sent Reagan back to mock her.  
**  
**

**-----**

Mark crossed and uncrossed his arms while leaning back in a chair during an M&M. He tried to focus his blinking eyelids on the screen in front of him as the man spoke with wisdom but his thoughts drifted once again to Addison. After hearing it was her first day the one thing he wanted to do was to actually call her and hear her intonation, but he made her promise and he just couldn't pick up the phone. So instead he sits drowsily as the attending drowns on and the interns behind him talk about him at a decibel that he is sure even the Chief down below him can hear.

"He is so moping." Cristina adds while chewing on her carrot stick.

"He is sad guys, leave him alone. And why are you eating during this?" The blonde haired one questions.

"I'm hungry and have been scrubbed in all day so this is lunch."

"You think Sloan will let me back on plastics. I am dying to get out of the vagina squad." Alex chimes in from behind Meredith who is trying to pay attention. She doesn't need any other reasons to get in trouble this year.

" I think you are both in denial."

"What?" Everyone but George responds. He isn't looking at her anymore. He never looks at her these days.

"What? What? Cristina, Burke is gone and you go on pretending life is the same by throwing yourself into work full board. Alex you miss Rebecca and won't admit that the pink and squishy floor is where you belong and you…" She trails off while eyeing Meredith.

"What about me?" She asks sullenly.

"What is your deal? You got McDreamy back and you still run around pouting. From the escapades I hear in my room I'd say you all have it better than him."

Meredith squishes back into her seat. "What about George? If you are going to criticize us then do George too."

"George is an intern again. You think he needs help feeling bad for himself?" Izzie shifts uncomfortable at the notion of speaking about George. It was a little harsh but the truth nonetheless.

"That I am. Thanks for bringing it up yet again. I guess I will go join the rest of my intern friends." He stands and stalks off and they continue to talk about Mark behind his back but entirely to his face.

**-----**

"Hit me again Joe." He whispers as Alex takes a seat a few down from him.

"What's your deal?" He calls out after ordering.

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh. Look you shouldn't get all bent out of shape over some woman. It's kind of sad and pathetic. Even Yang agrees." He nods his way before throwing down his shot.

"You don't know what you are talking about." And truthfully neither does he. This is so about Addison it isn't even funny anymore. And the newly appointed resident has a point this is kind of pathetic and un-becoming of a manwhore.

"Sure I do. I know that look, I've caused that look." He moves a seats closer.

"You don't strike me as the caring type Karev, so why even bother?"

"Looked like you needed a friend and for the record I don't care at all."

"Well then I'll save you the hassle." He downs the rest of his drink, swings his leather coat onto his shoulders, and heads for the heavy door. He stumbles out onto the sidewalk and decides that it is better to walk this off and head back to the hotel than to get into a cab completely sloshed.

**-----**

"We didn't have to do this you know." Reagan chimes in from her side of the table. Lunch is sprawled between the two of you in a chic L.A. restaurant she picked.

Sipping her ice water Addison replies, "Yeah I know."

She rolls her eyes and takes another fork full of salad. They sit in an uncomfortable silence for close to ten minutes before Reagan breaks the silence. "Ok, let's cut the crap. What do you want?"

She grins at her sister's brashness and adds, "Nothing. I just moved and I thought it would be nice to share lunch with my sister. Not that seeing you up close and extra personal isn't fun too but I thought that this would be nice."

"It is nice but you are up to something. I can tell. I know you. At least I used to know you, and this is classic manipulating Addison behavior. So what is it?"  
She places her hand over her stomach and shifts in her seat impatiently waiting for an answer.

"Why me? You are eight months along for crying out loud. The clinic didn't have an OB before me so what are you doing there now?"

"Naomi was seeing me as a favor. She mentioned bringing in someone new so I signed up. Glad to see you so excited though. Makes this all the more cozy."

"Oh." Addison twists her fingers along the stem of her fork before clanking it down on the plate. "So now your turn. Why did you agree to see me if you hate me?"

"I don't hate you."

"Last time I saw you…yeah, no I think I am right." She opens her mouth in a smile as their banter picks up, "You said 'God Addison I hate you!' Threw something in my general direction and stormed out of my house. That's a pretty accurate description, no?"

She juts her lower lip out and simply nods in her response. "I hated you then. But I was immature and-"

"Pregnant."

"Yeah."

"How is…." Not remembering her name Addison mumbles something down at the table.

"You are her godmother and you can't remember. That's amazing Addison, actually Elianna doesn't even know she had an Aunt. Fancy that." Reagan lets her anger rise to an acceptable level.

"Right, Ellie. She must be." Doing quick math in her head she adds, "Three."

"Four."

"I'm a bad Aunt." And a bad person she thinks to herself quietly as her emotions wash over her in quick rough waves. She shoves the tears aside and focuses on her plate.

"True." she pauses slightly. "You and Derek never got around to children?" She knows the answer to the question but figures if she has to squirm than so does her sister.

Addison shakes her head and remembers her lovely two infertile eggs clinging to life. "No, I didn't. We weren't ready."

"Not surprising."

"What?"

"The whole affair, he's absent, you cheated, he ran, you followed, he cheated, you divorced scenario."

"Thanks for summing up my life Rea. Makes me feel great."

"I'm just saying we never liked him, not even Dad. He said before he-"

"Please don't." Heaven help her this woman has got to back out before things turn ugly in a hurry.

Standing abruptly, Reagan grabs her purse and slings back, "You left us Addison, we never left you and just because it turned out we were right all along about Derek it was not a reason to exile us. You were wrong for the first time in your life." She spits out sarcastically, "Come to terms with it." She heads off with her red hair flowing behind her in the very essence of confidence as Addison lets her head met her hands in an triumphant sigh of relief and anger.  
**  
**

**-----**

"Go away!" Mark shouts in the direction of the aggravating door after another hard day alone.

"Sloan, open the damn door. Don't make me break it down."

"You wouldn't." He mutters from under his pillow.

"I've broken bones for less. Open it."

He gets up, neglects throwing on a shirt, cracks the door, and heads back to his bed while acknowledging her, "Torres."

She steps inside quickly and lets the door slide closed behind her. She quietly remembers that she promised Addison she would look after him and she is only doing what a good friend should be doing. "Mark."

"It would be better if you would just leave."

"I can't do that. I promised Addie I would watch after you and this…well you have turned into one sad sack of man my friend." She takes the opportunity to sit down next to him and reach for the bottle of gin in her purse. She presents the bottle as an offering and he turns his head.

"Gin. Gross Torres. Not interested." He shifts his feet and swings them around the edge of the bed and sits up next to her.

"I know that we aren't the best of anything really…but you have got to stop this pity party, people are saying things. It isn't natural."

"People" He points out while reaching out for the gin, "Are always talking about me. And yet no one knows a damn thing about me. Fuck them."

"Now there's my bitter ass of a co-worker. Next thing you know you will be hitting on a married woman."

"I'm done with that."

"Oh… She has done quite the number on you." Callie teases as she swipes the bottle out of his hands and takes a large swig.

"Shut up and pass the alcohol." He snatches it back out of her hands and they spend the rest of the night enjoying a warm buzz and the comfort of a forced friendship.  
**  
**

**-----**

"Naomi!" Addison spouts while trying her best to catch up with her retreating figure. "Naomi! You can't run away from me. What is going on?"

Spinning around Naomi grabs her arm and flings Addison into the closest exam room.

"Ouch! Nae. You are hurting me."

Releasing her grip on Addison's bare arm she continues, "I don't want Sam to know I am back and here you go screaming my name through the halls."

"I didn't know. You brought me out here and you have been gone this entire time. I had to have Sam show me around, Violet hates me, Cooper is a bumbling fool, and Pete won't leave me alone."

"You brought yourself out here Addison. You said you needed the change."

"You offered the office when I came out. Naomi what is your problem?"

"I offered you a spot because you are one hell of a doctor that could bill hours-"

"I was a business venture?" Addison gawks shifting her heels below her and unconsciously toying with her necklace.

"I'm a business woman Addison, you were a smart move. The fact that you chose us and I like you are simply benefits." She leans back against the counter in the room and takes a deep breath.

"After all we have been through this is how it is going to be? I come out here Nae, for what I don't even know anymore and you treat me like your weekly profit."

"You know why you are here and it isn't my fault you couldn't hack it up there. Listen, we are blessed and very excited to have you here-"

"Can't hack it!" Her nostrils flared slightly and she stepped back, "I am a world class neonatal surgeon and now, now I work in a private clinic! I am a cutter Naomi, a surgeon, which I realize is kind of a leap for you to imagine without the training and all but I am damn good at my job. I can hack it anywhere I want to."

"You want to be here?"

"Do you doubt me?" She retorts quickly.

"I just want you here for the right reasons. Not because you are trying to skip out on your past."

Turning and heading for the door she felt like she lost her only friend in L.A., "I couldn't skip over my past even if I wanted to. You invited her into my office within the first hour of the first day." And with that she let her shaking hands grab the handle and fling it forward. She presses forward looking down, trying not cry before she runs smack dab into Pete.

Trying to keep her from falling down he reaches up and grabs her hips to steady her. "Red, nice to see you. I think you have been avoiding me."

Fumbling with her posture she replies, "I'm not." She spins around straightening herself out. "See you later."

Watching her frame continue on down the hall he smiles. "Yeah, see you."

**-----**

"Dr. Sloan I need to see you in my office immediately." Richard beckons out from next to OR Board. A short time later both men were seated across from one another in the small but cozy office.

"This is ridiculous Sloan. I am not your therapist or even a person that cares about you but I do care about my hospital and you are putting everyone at risk right now."

He meekly replies in affirmation, "I know."

"Then sleep god damn it and take care of yourself. You are not in the shape to be cutting anyone open. You are off the board."

"Oh come on Richard." It is a useless fight and he knows it.

"No. You are done. I am sending you to a conference in L.A. When you return you better be back 100, I am tired of your crap."

"L.A."

"L.A. and you better leave Addison the hell alone. I didn't pick the venue."

"L.A." He repeats again before heading to the door to pack.

**-----**

Addison sits perched on her bed with a glass of scotch in one hand and the phone in the other. It was Derek's favorite brand which in turn happened to also be Mark's favorite. She doesn't want to think of them. She is intent to drink until she can't remember the men in her life. The week had ended just as badly as it had begun. Save a few interesting cases she was beginning to wonder if she actually likes California. Her hands find the familiar buttons and she whispers silently for someone to pick up.

"Hi you have reached Dr. Calliope Torres leave your message and I will see what I can do."

"Damn it Callie." Her fingers trace the buttons that are Mark's cell phone number. She promised she wouldn't. She had to leave the saving to someone else. Her mind raced with people to call and then slowly she was right back where she had begun envisioning Mark's number.

"I can't." She mumbles to herself before chucking the phone to the ground. She lets the tears out of their cage and turns and sobs into her pillow. She wishes that she had someone to call. Anyone other than Mark but she has exhausted every other number to no avail. She reaches for the phone again and punches in the number quickly praying that he will answer.

**_-----_**

He reaches his hotel room in a mood more joyous than he has seen in the last few weeks. He hurriedly begins shoving clothes into suitcases without caring to fold them. He feels alive and excited for the first time and he knows it is because she is getting close. It always feels like this when she is near. He hates that he has allowed himself to turn into such a sap but for her he wouldn't have it any other way.

He silences his phone when it begins to vibrate in his pocket without looking because tonight is too good of a night for some dumb call. He walks out of his room feeling twenty pounds lighter and prepares for his flight. In the cab, as he takes in the city lights another wave of adrenaline hits him. Maybe he won't actually see her but this is worth the risk. It has only been a week and he isn't sure he can last much longer without her along.

**-----**

* * *


	8. I wonder if you should stay

A/N: So the chapter where Mark finally makes it to L.A. and I can get some form of a plot rolling. Thanks for hanging in there and let the fun begin... oh and I updates twice in one day, you know you want to review me.

**_-----_**

**_You're coming a long, long way _**  
**_I wonder if you should stay _**  
**_Oh but what if you could say _**  
**_Everything to make my day_**  
_- Kate Walsh- "Is This It"_

**_-----_**

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" Addison screeches as she tumbles down to the ground from a complicated body position.

"Exercise is healthy, it cleanses the soul." Naomi pipes from peeking between her legs.

Pointing and waving wildly as she tries to stand gracefully Addison states, "That is not healthy. Bodies do not bend like that. I need a chiropractor now and you get to pay."

"You are such a whiner! Get back down here before the instructor comes over."

She sits on the ground crossing her legs while peering over at the rest of the group. "Yeah, because you wouldn't love that Nae….you have been eyeing him ever since we got here."

"So?"

"So? So, I don't do this. I am not an exerciser."

"You should become one." She sneaks another peek at the handsome, young, blonde instructor who is helping another woman into a position.

"Why?" She asks more than annoyed.

"Because, you only have a few patients a day. There is no stress here, no running flights of stairs in stupid heels, very few adrenaline rushes….and I'm just saying."

"Saying what?" She shifts against the floor attempting, in vain, to realign herself with the rest of the group.

"I'm saying your ass is going to get fat if you don't start doing something."

"I'm not fat!"

"I said you will get fat. Rest assured not even your metabolism will be able to find the time of day to digest what I plan on eating after this."

The young instructor quickly makes his way over to Addison and places one hand on her hip and the other on her torso helping her to re-position her "core". She blushes significantly and thanks him for his help while trying not to fall down again over her clumsy feet.

"See, now it's my turn to hate you." Naomi squeaks.

As she rolls up her mat Addison takes one more good long look at the man in the front. "So this is why you exercise?"

"No…well, ok yeah. But so what, it's healthy and I get a good view. I need this, my life is shit, remember?"

"You are sick Nae, sick. Ogling men thirty years younger than us is just-"

"Coming from the woman whose last conquest was her intern." She giggles, "Addie, you have no room to talk."

"That was one time. And he wasn't _that_ young and he wasn't my last…so yeah."

"Very grown up way to end a sentence…so yeah. Los Angeles is doing wonders for your upper class vocabulary." She laughs as Addison takes the opportunity to whack her with her rolled up mat as they make their way out the doors to go change.

**_-----_**

"Hey, kid!" Mark yells out to the young receptionist behind the desk.

"Yeah?" Dell replies while trying to tear his eyes off the computer screen.

"Does Addison..I mean Dr. Montgomery work here?" He leans against the counter wishing this scrawny kid was a woman so he could work his charm and get the hell out of here already.

"She does but she isn't here right now…did you want an appointment or to leave a message?"

"Well, when will she be back?"

"I don't know. She and Naomi are out doing pilates or something. Usually takes about two hours.

"Pilates?" He repeats in other disbelief although the thoughts of Addison is compromising positions is more than mind pleasing.

"Yes, pilates. Excuse me." He stands and busies himself in the waiting room as another man approaches him.

"Hi. Pete Wilder, are you my 9 o'clock?"

Mark accepts the man's hand while trying mentally to size him up. He's got that weird hippie thing going on and he is praying that Addison hasn't found herself under some sort of odd medicinal trance. "Mark Sloan, and no. I was just looking for Dr. Montgomery."

"Addison."

"Yes." He shifts his weight and tries to envision the older looking man and Addison dating. No, that's not possible. He is shaken out of his reverie by the next bothersome question as his patience grows thin.

"So, you two…umm…are you dating or something."

"Or something." Mark answers while his eyes dance around taking in their surrounding.

"Well, she should be back anytime now. You going to stick around?"

"No, I have a conference."

"I can tell her you stopped by." He offers with a ridiculous smile.

"That won't be necessary. Thanks." And with that Mark spins around headed towards the elevator to finish out the days boring tasks before turning to the one goal that grabs his attention the most. He will find Addison before he leaves, he has to and he has only got today left to do it.

**_-----_**

Addison returns grinning from her early morning workout to find several unimportant messages and one client waiting to see her. She works her way quickly through the early morning and finds herself needing a little afternoon pick-up before heading to the kitchen. She pours herself another cup of coffee, the one vice she hasn't been able to kick since moving down here almost one month ago and begins to marvel at how long it has already been. Aside from the annoying sisterly confrontations and the slight boringness of her new job she feels as though things are finally starting to come together.

Pete saunters into the room with a smile and an empty cup before taking the seat next to her. "Someone came by for you earlier."

"I got my messages, thanks." She stirs the creamer in her cup a little more so as not to fidget in the cute man's presence.

"He didn't leave a message. His name was Mark..I think. Mark something."

"Sloan." She finishes her breath still caught somewhere in the back of her throat. The emotions run into her like a semi-truck hauling concrete blocks and she tries to focus on the conversation at hand.

"Yeah, that's it. So who is he Red? Long lost brother, friend, husband?"

She laughs for a minute before she realizes that what he is doing is trying to make sure she is still available. "Something like that….and I'm still not going out with you."

He winks at her before remarking, "So you think. I'm a good time I'll have you know. I may not be as broody and intimidating as your brother but I'm a good time. You wish you could date me. Darn that no consorting rule. We could be bad and break it."

"He isn't my brother. I don't have a brother." She watches as his expression grows slightly weary.

"Well you may as well tell me if you are married. No need to hide it."

"I'm not married." And it really isn't any of his business about Derek so she keeps that to herself as well. "Is this killing you?" She plays.

"No, just trying to make friendly conversation with the new kid."

"Ah…that is getting old. I don't do new."

"Your shoes say you do."

She follows his glance down her bare legs to her shoes and smiles at his attempt. "Nice try. Stop looking at my legs." She stands with her coffee cup in hand prepared to ward off the storm that is inevitably brewing because of Mark.

"I wasn't!" He yells after her.

**_-----_**

Despite Pete's never failing acts to impress her she still finds herself in a place where she is unwilling to start anything resembling what could be a long term relationship. The need for change did not bring on the need for dating anyone specific and she is starting to enjoy the single life for the first time in over 15 years. She likes the idea of having a date with one man on a Thursday and a different one on Saturday. This new exciting option was beginning to take full effect as she reached into her phone and quickly dialed to verify said date on Saturday.

Jack was one of Sam's publishers. He had taken it upon himself to introduce the two after a brief non-productive meeting in his office. After some small talk in the lobby that held Sam within earshot the tall, dark-haired, green eyed man offered his card and dinner at 8 pm. Hoping that she could legitimately tie up the weekend before Mark asked, because he has this way of knowing when she is lying, she confirmed their meeting on his voicemail and went back to her daily routine.

**_-----_**

After the last day of what Mark thought could have been the least informational and most boring conference of his life he hastily makes way for his car hoping to catch Addison before she leaves for the day.

Two freeways, one missed exit, four signal lights, and one almost accident he arrives at the same place he was earlier this morning. He parks his rental in the same spot as before and makes way for the large brick structure secretly praying she is still inside. He feels his heart jump a little when he sees her car in the parking lot but tells himself not to get his hopes up too high. A million people could own that car although the likelyhood of it being his long lost love's are certainly high as well. He greets the small, childlike receptionist again and just as he is escorted to the waiting area he catches a glimpse of the brilliant red hair cricling the corner with a mother to be.

"And then I need to see you in two weeks and we will…" Her words trail off as her eyes catch Mark's and she hurriedly finishes off the sentence, bids her patient goodbye, and strides to where he sits smirking.

He stands and decides that a handshake is entirely too formal for the pair and engulfs her in a hug.

"Mark…" She eeks out from under his grasp.

He says nothing and takes in her comforting scent until he realizes that she probably can't breathe anymore and releases her. He takes a small step back and can't keep the obvious smile off his face no matter how cool he tries to play it. God, it feels good to see her again. When she is around his world just feels right and he misses the familiarity of her touch and the contours of her face though he will probably never get the chance to tell her.

"What are you doing here?" Addison demands while putting more space in between herself and Mark.

"I had a conference. Richard sent me to a…stupid lecture on the use of skin grafts in the 21st century. It's really boring." He studies her apperance before adding, "You look good. The sun does your complexion well."

"My complexion?" She challenges. He smiles in response and is pushed from behind in the general direction of her office before they run into the hippie man from earlier.

"Mark." Pete manages while trying not to notice that Addison is touching him still as they stop.

"Was it Brett or something. I don't remember." He slings his arm around Addison's waist as she emerges from behind him and the three stare at each other in a battle of eyes and unsaid words.

"Pete."

"Right."

Sensing the tension Addison frees herself from his grip. "We need to go talk. Alone. In my office."

"Whatever you say Red. I was on my way out. Have a good weekend. Are you working?"

"Maybe…I don't know yet. I have to go." she begins to walk away as the testosterone mounts and yells after, "Mark! Come on."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"I don't like that guy." As they enter the room he takes in her little touches around the office. The books in the corner. The pens on the desk. Even the most common things scream Addison.

She rounds the corner of her desk and takes a seat in front of him. "What are you doing here, in my place of work. And if you open your mouth to tell me that I should come home you should note that my home is about 15 minutes south of here and I will get up and leave you on your ass in here faster than-"

"I miss you." He hopes that she will actually take it and not throw it back in his face. He gets nothing in response and decides to press forward with the rest of his very own planned speech that he rehearsed in the car on the way here. "I miss you and I know that you have made a new life down here. I know that I told you to do that but I didn't realize…."

"Realize what?" She is testing him and he knows and she knows but it has to be done anyway. It is going to take a hell of a lot more than a well meaning speech to get her back into anything reminiscent of more than a short term friendship.

"I didn't realize it would be so hard to be without you." She starts to argue and refute but he moves ahead. "I came out here and found you, I really did do the awful conference thing though..not even I can fake that kind of boredom…and I came out here to make peace, to say the things that I didn't get to tell you before you left. Because there are things that you need to know, that you should get to know…..Better late than never?" He attempts as she glares convincingly from behind her desk.

"Not really."

"I love you." He utters out as he shifts uncomfortably in the chair. Spilling out emotions in true downpour fashion is definitely not his strong suit but she deserves to know that it wasn't all about the bet. He does love her; he has for quite some time and all he really wants is a chance to prove it.

"Stop saying that."

"Why? Because it is the truth and we don't do the truth or because you don't want it to be true."

"Both." She begins to toy with her pen and focus on the desk when he begins speaking again. It is rare form to see him at this, and his insecurity about himself and their relationship make her a little unsteady. She is trying not to center on all the amazing things he is saying or how great he looks, although unwisely dressed in all black. He reminds her of herself when she arrived in Seattle. And the one thing Seattle taught her, well there were several things, but the main one is that perhaps you have to know when to stop. When to say this isn't working now, it won't be working tomorrow, and it hasn't worked in years.

He continues babbling on taking into consideration that she probably has her mind racing a hundred miles an hour over analyzing every sentence he has said since he stepped foot in front of her. Mark has always been a believer that actions speak louder than words ever can. Maybe it is because he is often failed by words, or has an easier time expressing himself physically. Whatever the case he can't stop himself when he leans forward toward her face.

She watches him move closer and she knows exactly what he is doing. When Mark gets frustrated with words or emotions he simply goes in for the kill. But the knowing doesn't explain why she is falling for the trap and meeting him halfway in all of this.

Before either one notices his mouth is on hers for what feels like a lifetime. It's slow and gentle, much unlike their rushed and frenzied kisses before botty calls of long ago. He takes his time sucking on her lower lip before carefully moving his tongue forward when she permits. Their tongues dance in an elegant formation around one another and when he pulls back she is breathless and flushed.

"I…uh…we…I mean." She tries to stammer out as the feelings wash carelessly over her.

"Wanna do it again?" He raises his eyebrow and stands to that he can move closer to her.

"We…ummm…we shouldn't do that again." She tries to find her pen or anything to look at other than his face.

"You didn't like it?" He tests as he moves around her desk and bends down so that they can be eyelevel.

"I liked it…wait, no. I mean I did like it. I…I, just we shouldn't do that here." Yeah that's it she thinks. If they keep going, well she already knows what kind of self control she lacks when Mark is around. And now he is not only here physically but saying all the right things for the first time in her life. It's enough to make her want to lose all power and give in to….no she won't do it. "Mark, this is my office and I am a professional here. I have peers that respect me and I can't be seen-"

"With me?"

"No! Well yes. What are you doing here?" She tries again and he rolls back on his heels giving up for a second.

"I told you why I am here. I love you Addison. The Addison from New York, Seattle, and now L.A. I tried to kick the habit but it is-."

"I…" Really she has nothing to add and wishes that he would stop saying these things because he perhaps knows her better than anyone else in this world.

"You don't have to say it back. I know you don't but I think you could. So what do you say we go out for real, a real date for my last day in town. You get all pretty and wear one of those amazing dresses and I will pick you up at 7:30 on Saturday?"

"Well, I could but I have a date on Saturday." She isn't even sure why she is agreeing or sharing this information but her mind is still on the kiss.

"Oh."

"Jake, wait no Jack. Yes, Jack. We could double date?"

"You want me to find a date and take another girl to dinner with you and Jake-"

"Jack." She corrects quickly.

"Jack…whatever. You want me to find a girl when the only one I want to be with is you? Then sit through dinner watching another man fawn over you. No thanks. You could've just said no, I can't get hurt that much more."

"Mark. I can't cancel on him. It is one of Sam's friends. Just find some hooker, or nurse or whatever it is that you attract…come out with us and then we will ditch our dates and-"

"I'm not having sex with you." He affirms.

"What?"

"I'm not. I didn't come down here for a trans-state booty call. Not that you called, but I just want a date Addison. So I'll go, but after we have a date and a chance to talk. Give me that chance. Deal?"

She is deathly terrified of how this scenario is going to go but it is worth the risk and she wouldn't mind a nice romp with Mark, he is always a good fall back and does know all the ways to make her body scream in pleasure. Besides she has learned better than anyone out there that he can't possibly hold out on her. Mark is just Mark, so it is worth a shot. "Deal."

* * *


	9. So watch the world burning bright

A/N: Hello all! Thanks, first of all, for hanging in there with this story. I know it has been a little slow but we are finally getting to the interesting stuff I had planned. Secondly, thanks to everyone who has commented. I really appreciate it. Lastly, thanks to my speed reading beta! Apologies for the slow turn around, I blame college. Expect some angst for a little while and enjoy...

_**-----**_

**_Go put on your best tonight_**

**_It's you and me and not much time_**

**_So watch the world burning bright_**

_-Yellowcard- "You and Me and One Spotlight"_

_**-----**_

"Addie, where is you hairdryer?" Naomi yells over the shower as she reaches into the bathroom cabinet.

Peeking out from behind the shower curtain Addison lets her heart rate drop again after seeing that, in fact, the only person who broke into her house was Naomi. "Geesh Nae, give me a heart attack why don't you?"

"Sorry. Hairdryer?"

"Other side. What are you doing here? And why in the world do you need a hairdryer?"

"I'm here to help you get ready for the big date."

"I'm not sixteen, I don't need moral support." She offers as she begins to lather the lightly scented shampoo onto her red tresses.

"You sure about that? I've seen some odd things in my day but going out on a date with a guy in order to be on a date with another guy? It's weird. Besides you don't look so good."

"I look fine, I will look great shortly." She begins the rinsing process and as the hot water cascades down her back she offers the tiniest bit of truth. "Nae?"

"Yeah?" She answers as she begins to open the door to exit the steam filled room.

"Do I really look bad?"

"Pale lately but no. You are Addison. You could go out in sweats and cowboy boats and men would still swoon. Why?"

"I think I am a little nervous."

"Nervous to go out on a date with the guy that you chose to break up your marriage with? Nervous to go out on a date with that same guy who you lived with for two months?" Naomi settles herself against the door jam waiting for a reply.

As Addison reaches for the conditioner she knows that she shouldn't feel like vomiting until her nerves settle but she can't help but feel a little anxious over this meeting. "I feel sick."

"Like what kind? Help me out here. I'm a doctor not a mind reader Addison."

"I don't know. Like all nauseas and stuff. I think it is nerves." It feels even more ridiculous now that she has admitted it aloud and she slowly begins to feel her stomach clench as she slides her back against the tile hoping to stem the feeling.

"You are such a freak. It is Mark. Mark, Addison. Now I have to go fix Violet's hair. Since this is a fake date she didn't feel the need to do well anything…we have a lot of work to do so hurry up and get out of there. I need all the help I can get." With that she shuts the door and heads off down the hallway to find the perturbed woman who has to pose as Mark's date most unwillingly.

Addison slides a little further down along the tile as she clutches at her knees and the steaming water sprays down at all angles. She breathes deeply, trying to ease herself into a better thought pattern and after a few moments she has managed to pull herself together enough to emerge from the shower as flawless as if nothing ever happened at all. She wraps a towel around herself and heads out to find Naomi and Violet.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Nice towel, very classy." Pete stabs as she attempts to join her friends in the living room.

"Pete, Cooper! What in the….Naomi!" She storms off in the general direction of her room hoping to find some answers. She finds them sorting through her closet. "What the hell Naomi! Why are they all here? I walked out in my towel." She motions to herself.

"I bet they loved that." Naomi flings a few more clothing options down on the bed and then turns back to the closet.

"You look perfect even after a shower. I hate you." Violet takes the opportunity to add before throwing herself on the bed. "This is ridiculous. I mean first of all I can't believe I agreed to do this and secondly-"

"You needed to get out. To date. Violet you can't stay hung up on-"

"I'm not." She receives incredulous looks from both sides of the room as she continues, "I'm not hung up on Alan…and besides this isn't even a real date. I mean he is leaving with you, coming for you, coming in you-"

"Violet!"

"What, I am merely stating the facts as they have been presented to me in this case. This can not be good for one's self esteem. Why can't I just wear this anyway?" She motions to her current ensemble which consists of a frumpy old college sweatshirt, a baseball cap, running shorts, and sandals.

"Because that is hideous. I can't believe you left the house in that." Naomi gives up on the clothes and heads off in search of shoes.

"Why should I get dressed up? Pointless."

"Why did you agree to go?" Addison ventures as she takes over Naomi's spot in the massive walk-in closet.

"Why did I agree, why did I agree? Let's see here. He looked absolutely pathetic and hopeless plus I work with you so-"

"I've seen that face but you could have said no."

Checking to make sure Naomi is out of view, Violet finally relents. "Fine, I need to get out."

"Ok then. You can at least look nice."

"Besides Naomi is taking one of Pete's friends as a date because she heard that Sam has reservations at the same time as you with some woman from-"

"Hold on just a second. That got way too third period French for me. Naomi is coming on this date with one of Pete's friends?" Addison echoes from her closet.

"Yes, and then Cooper is going as my back up when you and Mark bail. Pete has the flavor of the week because he needs to be there for his friend and-"

"You all are coming on my simple double date?"

"This is what I have been told." Violet sits up and begins digging through the piles of clothes. "You are like ten feet taller than me; none of this is going to work."

"I am not. Pete plus one, Naomi plus one, Cooper, then Sam plus one because I know how you all work, you and Mark, and then Jake-Jack and I." She quickly does the math in her head as she walks out in a little black dress. "11 people!"

Taking in her appearance, Violet shrugs and flops back down on the bed. "I hate today."

"I'm going to be sick." Addison rushes for the safety of the bathroom as Naomi emerges with a pair of black pumps and shoves them at Violet.

"Here these go with this." She reaches into the pile and pulls out her selection. "Go change, we don't have all day."

"Addison may need you. I told her the plans and she, well she freaked out. I don't do vomit so it is all you."

"You weren't supposed to say anything."

"I have an adversity to lying."

**_-----_**

A short time later after Naomi had convinced Addison that this date was not going to be as awful as they had made it out to be they emerge from the bathroom. In her truest fashion Addison has pulled it all together and is working on slipping on her heels when Pete joins her in the living room alone.

"So you always dress up like this for a blind date?" He takes the other side of the couch and spends some time taking in her long legs and flowing hair.

"It isn't a blind date. We've met before."

"So I heard. Mark, right?"

"I was talking about Jack but yes Mark and I are familiar too." She slips on the left shoe and then carefully pulls her head back up and crosses her legs waiting for Pete to continue on.

"I don't like him."

"Let me guess, you get some sort of weird voodoo vibe from the herbs when he is-"

"You really like to take pot shots at my profession, don't you?" He moves a little closer careful not to alarm her with his movements.

She cocks her head to side and lets out a small grin, "I'm sorry did you say profession?"

"Women." He shakes his head. "I'm just saying I don't like him. I think that he is bad for you."

"She points in the air in his general direction and taps lightly, "Ah, but you don't know me, so see where that could cause a problem?"

"No, I don't. I could know you though." He grins wide as Violet, Naomi, and Cooper join them in the waiting game.

"When is your friend supposed to be here?" Naomi asks as she takes a seat in the chair across from Addison. "Hello, earth to Pete."

"What? Oh yeah…my friend. 7:45 I think…" His voice trails off as his eyes stay locked with Addison's.

"You two need to knock it off. She may be going on two dates, but neither one of them is with you Pete. Focus." Violet offers as she struggles to get another shoe on. ""Have I mentioned that I hate today?"

"Yes!" They all scream back at her. Cooper ventures over to Addison's window and watches as Sam talks to his date before grabbing his coat and heading towards his door.

"S-1 is on the move."

"What, already!" Naomi squeals as she ducks into the chair.

"Wait, we have code names for the night too?" Addison asks confused as she re-crosses her legs in the other direction and pulls at the hem of her dress down to cover her knees.

"We have code names." Cooper affirms strolling back into living room.

"S-1 is Sam, Vi is Violet, Coop is Cooper, Nae is Naomi, you are Red, and you can call me sugarplum." Pete laughs as he finishes off the sentence.

"Those are horrible code names."

"Addison, we don't have code names. You need to wake up. They are going to be here soon, what is your deal?" Naomi urges as she peeks out the window.

"Nothing. I'm good. I look good right?" She glances down self-consciously and tries to straighten her posture even more.

"You look good." The boys acknowledge as they both turn their attention back to her.

"I hate today." Violet echoes as she slumps down into the chair further.

"We know." They all respond as the shift and bust themselves with waiting until their night can continue.

**_-----_**

Jack is quick to offer his hand to help Addison out of his car and even quicker to loop his arm around her and place his hand on the small of her back. Mark is clearly agitated by the time the large group reaches their table and takes their respective seats. He slumps in his seat and uses the menu to block his view of the annoying dark haired man as he rambles on about the entrée. The large rounded table is strategically located just out of sight of Sam and his date and Naomi is wiggling around in her seat to get a better view. Her date, Frederick, has no idea that he is just a victim of a much larger plan. He attempts conversation with her and she continuously rebuffs leaving him talking to Pete, who happened to grab some woman off the street named Alexis, and to Cooper who has spent the whole night watching Violet.

"So I said to him…not my job, not my problem." Jack laughs as he finishes off his dinner and take a look around. The fact that this many people were coming along was not something that he had bargained on and he has had to fight the entire night away to keep Addison's attention. "Addison?"

"Yes?" She tears her eyes off what Mark is doing with Violet's hand trying not to feel jealous.

"Are you, do you feel okay? You haven't been paying any atten-"

"I'm good." She turns her head resting it on her hand and devotes all of her attention to him for a moment. She hates men like this, the ones that constantly need their ego fed. She has had enough of needy men in her life and she knows that this date with Jack, even if Mark wasn't there, would never have resulted in anything more.

They continue on through dinner with the now familiar routine of boring stories and Mark rubbing Addison's calf "accidentally" with his foot. He maintains concentration on playing up the fact that Violet is his real date and finds that he actually isn't having as bad of a time as one would have assumed. Shortly after the main course Sam and his poor date joined the group at the behest of Naomi who mistakenly headed toward their table instead of the bathroom. As more people filled the table, their banter grew exponentially boisterous and soon most of their conversation, aided by the help of much alcohol, could be heard across the restaurant.

"So Alexis what is it that you do?" Addison manages from across the table while finishing off a glass of red wine.

"I'm a massage therapist." She answers earnestly as a wide smile play across Addison's face. It is met with a stern glance from Pete who has just started listening in on the conversation.

"What exactly does that entail?" Addison states as she pushes a little harder. Alexis begins an over simplified explanation of her daily routine which brings out more smirking and glaring as the invisible daggers fly across the table. "Sounds interesting." She manages while trying not to laugh.

"Maybe you can demonstrate on me later." Pete suggests earning a series of giggles out of Alexis and some serous eyebrow raising from Addison.

"So how do you all know each other?" Jack asks, more so suggesting Mark than any of the others around the table.

"Naomi, Sam and I went to med. school together and well Mark too I suppose, even though he was rarely in class. Then I met Violet, Cooper, and Pete when I joined the practice about a month ago." She finishes leaving a whole lot to his imagination. She stands instead trying to get away from the conversation and excuses herself heading towards the bathroom. 15 minutes later she still hadn't returned.

"You think she is okay?" Jacks asks honestly. He is a little afraid she has had too much to drink or perhaps grapples with an eating disorder of some kind.

"She was sick earlier but she said she was feeling better. Maybe I should go check on her." Naomi pipes in before striding from her chair almost hitting Sam on her way out.

**_-----_**

"That was rather brilliant you know." He points out as he helps her up onto the curb.

"What?"

"Faking sick. Nice job. I realized after dinner we hadn't really discussed a get away plan so I am impressed with your ability."

"Oh, thanks." She isn't so sure as they pace in time on the sidewalk together if she really is nervous or if she is actually sick now. She feels exhausted and after heaving all of her dinner back up there is nothing more that she wants to do than to go home and snuggle into her bed and forget the whole thing ever existed.

"Hey look at me." He stops in front of her to block her path and tips her chin up with his finger. "You don't look well, are you really sick?"

"I don't know." She shrugs and begins walking again.

"Addison." He reaches out for her hand and as they brush fingertips he feels a jolt of electricity course through him. It is a familiar feeling. One that he always gets when she is around and there have been times, like her entire marriage to Derek, that he wishes that she didn't have this physical effect over him.

"Yeah?" She echoes out distantly fixing her eyes on her shoes. He reaches up and touches her forehead and she immediately flinches and pulls back.

"Hey, whoa. I was just going to check your temperature."

"I don't have a fever. I think it is some silly bug. It will pass." She fakes a smile and starts walking again.

"You are lying to me."

Spinning around to quickly she feels her stomach tighten and she visibly grimaces before adding, "What?"

He strides to catch up with her before grabbing her hand again and setting their pace. "You are lying. I can tell and shut up; I know it isn't very becoming of me." She grins as he explains the reasons why he can always know that she is lying and she suddenly realizes that he knows more about her than he does himself. Breaking in her thought train the words, "Do you want to go home?" come blaring through and before she can think she nods.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Addison has always hated being sick. Hate, hated. She hates the stuffy, runny, disgusting noses, the itchy eyes that come with seasonal allergies, the blasting headaches, body chills, and the unrelenting nausea. When she was younger Reagan always used to snuggle up with her, because heaven knew her parents couldn't care less, and rub her back until she fell asleep. As she climbs into her bed she feels the familiar tears set into the corner of her eyes and for a moment she feels like a four year old for wanting her sister to come take care of her.

Mark knows how much Addison hates being sick. Being ill compromises the persona of someone who has no visible faults or weaknesses. He has the unfortunate timing of catching her during flu season one especially bad year and ended up staying with her through the weekend while Derek played at the hospital. He reaches into her medicine cabinet hoping to find something useful and comes back out with a thermometer and some aspirin. She has situated herself slumping against the headboard and she looks like she is on the verge of tears. He quickly comes around her side setting a glass of water next to her on the nightstand and hands her the aspirin that she promptly refuses.

"Take them, please." He shoves them back in her hand.

"No, I'm not sick. I refuse. I voted."

She looks pitiful and has grown greener by the moment so Mark can't help but smirk so he settles himself next to her after taking his shoes off and dropping them onto the floor. He moves up next to her and tries to asses the situation at hand. With Addison, there are two levels and god forbid you pick wrong. On one hand she could want to be comforted and held being told and assured that everyone gets sick and it is ok. On the other hand she could be so sick that touching her could make the whole situation worse so he pauses for a moment before deciding that it is definitely the first one. He lightly tugs on her arm until she relents and lays her head upon his chest as the slip down deeper into the comforter.

"I hate being sick." She sniffles.

"I know." He settles for stroking her hair and being quiet unless she has something to say.

"I ruined everything."

"You did not. Everyone gets sick Addie, it's not like you picked this."

"I know." She aches before closing her eyes. "You said we should talk and now we are here in my room and we should be out-"

"Enough. You are sick, sleep." Because honestly looking at her, although always pleasing, was a little disturbing and she looks like she hasn't slept since she moved down here.

"You leave tomorrow."

"I leave tomorrow." He repeats.

Before she can control herself the tears are flowing freely and the sobs are radiating from her chest. He methodically rubs slow circles along her spine until she settles herself enough to clarify. "I don't want you to leave me." It's heartbreaking to hear and something she should have been saying since the beginning but he'll take it because she is rarely this venerable and weak so he knows that it rally is heartfelt.

"I don't really want to go."

"You have to go."

He isn't really sure if it is a question or a statement but he answers anyway. "Yeah."

They spend the rest of the night in the same position. She finally falls asleep encased in his arms and he nods off but wakes up thinking he is in a dream with her. His eyes adjust to her hair and the touch of her skin against his. This is the moment he was craving in Seattle the last month. He tried to walk away. He did his best to cut his losses and move on with life but he couldn't help the miserable attitude that came with "healing". He decides as the clock read 4:57 am that he doesn't want to heal anymore. If he has any chance of still getting her he would rather be a walking open incision riddled with infections than be stuck in the healing process. His mind was made up the moment he saw her but this night where she allowed him in, if only for a few hours was enough to solidify his selection. He has a meeting with Naomi at 7 before his flight leaves.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Addison wakes up alone hung over in all sorts of manners. She is physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and if she hadn't thrown up everything in the last 24 hours she swears that she would be a little hung over from the wine as well. She stumbles out of bed tangled in her sweats and winces as she sees the alarm clock blink back the number 10:38 am. She reaches for her cell phone to call Naomi and apologize for being so late but she finds a note instead.

Add-  
I called in sick for you. Hope you don't mind. I didn't want to wake you. I'll call as soon as I land. Feel better.  
-Mark

After all the nights in New York of waking up alone. After all of the indiscretions and empty beds she has woken up to this is a nice change. This could possibly be the sweetest thing he has ever done for her and before she can remark on how much he has changed she has to head for the services of the bathroom once again.

**_-----_**

"You are wrong." Addison states in a very matter of fact tone back at Naomi a short week later.

"I'm not wrong. Here look." She shoves the lab work back into her hands.

"This can't be right. You said!" Her voice grows in intensity.

"I know what I said but sometimes the body-"

"Don't finish that sentence with bullshit like that. You said Naomi. I trusted you. You said no fertility potential! None! Addison you are never going to have a child is what that lab work said, and now….now this! Run it again." She lies back down on the exam table when she finishes screaming.

"I've ran it four times Addison. I'm not doing it again and we aren't having this conversation. You should be happy. You came to me months ago and said I want to have a baby. I'm ready. So why the hell aren't you happy? You're pregnant! Your dream-"

"No, no, no. Shit, shit, shit."

"Addison." Naomi manages as she tries to stop the freak out before it happens. "So what if it is Mark's. He, well he is Mark, but he is good looking, intelligent although we think differently a lot, and he will want this baby even if you don't want him. So stop the freak out and breathe for a quick moment so you can be happy."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! I always screw everything up." She buries her head in her hands as the tears begin to fall.

"Yeah you should get used to the crying thing it happens a lot. Trust me." She doesn't stop so Naomi tries a different tactic and approaches her friend giving her a light hug. "This will be okay Addison, great even. You will be an amazing mom and the rest you don't need to worry about yet. Just grow my goddaughter or godson. Alright?"

Nodding even though she thinks she can't feel hear own head anymore Addison manages, "Yeah."

"You done freaking out?" Naomi states as she takes a step back.

"No."

"Why? Addison this is nothing to get worked up over. You finally get your baby, your dream. We will all be here for you-"

"It's Derek's." She feels her stomach twist as she says his name and mentally damns herself for ever thinking goodbye sex was a good solution.

* * *


	10. There's no comfort in the waiting room

A/N: So yes, I like angst...a lot. It's my happy place. Some things are going to stay canon, because I like proximity of Sam to Addison's residence and a few other things. Thanks to the "fabulous" beta.

_**Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye  
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds  
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all  
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself  
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room  
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news  
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads  
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"  
**-Deathcab for Cutie- "What Sarah Said"  
**-----  
**_

Addison was lying on the comfortable couch in the uninhibited office. She refused to think. She refused to feel. She merely existed for the last half an hour. Breathing in and out slowly, her eyes glazed over staring up at the ceiling, and her aching body as limp as possible. She wasn't in the mood to think. She was tired of analyzing the situation, she was tired of rationalizing, she was plain tired.

"How long has she been like that?" Dell asked peering over the counter and into the window with the rest of the group.

"About an hour." Naomi retorted without removing her eyes.

"I need my office, I have patients…just put her in an exam room or in her own office!" Violet urged. She wasn't new to this type of behavior but Addison had made it clear she didn't want Violet's help, so she was doing her no favors this last week.

"Someone has to get her out of there." Sam says as he lightly nudges Naomi.

"What's her deal? Is she crying or something?" Pete asks while joining the group.

"No. And why do I have to be the one to get her out? You her friend too Sam."

"You've known her longer." He responds quietly. "You get custody of her in the divorce."

"She is an adult and that is ridiculous logic. I've known about Maya longer do I get her?"

"She isn't acting like an adult. Maybe we should send Cooper in there." Violet shrugs as she picks up a new chart and busies herself with this afternoon's schedule.

"I can go." Pete offers heading for the door.

"No!" They all yell out in unison and he stops dead in his tracks.

Sam pushes Naomi forward and she reluctantly states, "I'll go."

_**-----**_

"I can't believe that after all of this you are going to chase her again." Derek mentions as he leans against the counter in his fashionable pose while the nurses swoon.

"I'm not chasing her. I'm going for a change of pace, of scenery. Besides it is L.A., Derek, I'm a plastic surgeon. A great one at that. I belong there. Seattle was a layover." Mark states as he scribbles in his last chart of the day.

"I still hate you, you know that right?"

"Yes."

"As long as we are clear."

"Crystal." Mark retorts as he slams the file down into its holder and a large grin forms across his face. He knows what Derek is doing, it's fine. He'll play along and wait for it.

"Just you know…" He shifts uncomfortably and drops his voice, "Just keep in touch…and if you hurt her Mark, I swear to god-"

"Relax, man. I'm not going for Addison. I told you that. I'm going to go."

"Yeah she's going to love that response."

He smirks in affirmation. "I can't believe that you finally care. It's a late showing, but nice."

"I always cared."

"You had one hell of a way of showing it."

Derek crosses his arms, immediately growing defensive over the remarks about his failed marriage and stems away the thoughts of his last night with Addison. "I loved her. I did. I know you know that so just get your ass to L.A. and make her happy already."

"Not going for her."

He smiles, "Keep telling yourself that."

_**-----**_

"You have to get up Addie; this is a childish way to deal with your problems." Naomi crosses her legs as she takes a seat down by her feet.

"Leave."

"No. Get up. This blank staring isn't going to change the fact that you are carrying your ex-husband's child."

Addison visibly shudders at the thought and fixes her eyes back on the bumpy white ceiling above her red-rimmed eyes. Crying ended hours ago, so she is spent and hell bent on watching the grooves in the ceiling until her stomach settles itself. This child is going to be toture. Payback for everything, she has a feeling.

"Ok, what is it that you need? What do you want? I'll get it. Crackers, ginger ale, cable TV in your office, a new car…come on help me out here." She doesn't want to get desperate but frankly her once strong friend is a little scary like this.

Addison throws the possibilities around in her mind before simply stating, "I need to cut."

"What?" A Naomi reply as if that was the most ludicrous idea she had ever heard.

She keeps her eyes still and her voice steady before continuing, "I want to cut. I need to cut. I haven't had a surgery in weeks! I need a scalpel in one hand and a screaming baby being pulled from a womb in the other. I need to save someone and I want to cut flesh…. I want to make incisions and bring babies into rooms with happy mothers and families…I want the adrenaline rush of having to think quickly on my feet to save one of them…or better yet both…I want to feel the agony of losing a patient on the table…I want to smell like surgery, like sterilization and gloves….I want to command an OR and glare at snotty little interns…I want scrub cap hair and I want my feet and back to ache because I have been in the same position for the last nine hours not because I am carrying the devil's baby…..I want to cut, damn it." The pinnacle hadn't gone quite as she planned, but it is all there. Plain and simple.

She forces it all out in a hurried manner and is forced to think of what a good escape her old job used to be. She misses being a real surgeon far more often than she would like to admit. At first, the possibility of slowing down and enjoying life seemed like an amazing prospect but now, now she wanted to cut. Something, anything. She's settle for an appendectomy if she had to.

"You want to cut." Naomi grimaces as she adjusts to the idea of having to deal with these random Addison outbursts more frequently in the coming months.

"Yes." She states as she returns to eyeing the border where the wall meets the ceiling.

"I can't do that Addie. This is a clinic. We do things differently here. You know that. If we get someone who needs a c-section today then it is all yours but other than that-"

"It's the same old boring patients." She scratches at her hair before running her once well-used fingers through it. "But I get it. I did this to myself. It's wrong to hope someone has complications, isn't it?"

"Probably."

"I shouldn't have taken this job. I should've known better. I should have faced my demons and stayed in Seattle where I didn't necessarily belong but I fit a hell of a lot better and-"

"You fit here. You'll get used to it. We are all about the-"

Addison cuts her off again because she is tired of the same ol' song and dance. "-Patients….I know Nae, I could just really use a surgery every once in a while."

"You could call Charlotte." Naomi winces as she recites the wretched woman's name.

"I'm sure she would just love that. Maybe I could talk to their Chief of Surgery instead." Addison offers.

"You are going to go below her. Yeah that will work."

"She is Chief of Staff, it's different…never mind. It was-"

"You want to cut." Naomi recites again shaking her head.

"I want to cut. I'm a bad employee." Addison affirms shifting around to finally look at her friend.

"You are a surgeon. It's imbedded, we can't change that. You've been one for too damn long…So maybe we find you something to cut occasionally."

"I'd like that."

"Well your happiness is important down here. We need you." She smiles and laughs outwardly while trying to help Addison up. "When you turn into a behemoth and you better because I did, Pete is the one who is going to have to do the lifting."

"I can lift myself."

"Not for much longer." Naomi returns victoriously with hey prey as Violet ushers someone into her office and Addison turns back into herself grabbing a chart and grinning at Pete. Naomi can't help but wonder what in the world her friend thinks she is doing trying to involve herself with that man, but lets it slide because today is already off to a bad start.

_**-----**_

"It's a control thing." Violet says placing her coffee cup on the table in the middle of the break room.

"Maybe she just wants to cut." Cooper adds as he busies himself with his cup.

"No, it is a control thing. It's a god complex, surgeons like to save people."

"All doctors have some sort of god complex." Sam adds in his two cents when he walks in and takes a seat next to Violet.

"True." Cooper affirms.

"What are we talking about?" Naomi asks as she strolls in glaring at Sam and reaches for a blue coffee cup from the cupboard.

"Addison's control issues." Violet says as she twirls her finger along the edge of her cup.

"Oh. Could we maybe just leave her alone for a while? Like give her a week or so. She is having a hard time."

"Is she okay?"

Naomi switches her eyes back to focus on Sam, "Yeah Sam, she is going to be just fine."

"Someone has a temper today. You can just answer the question; don't get all defensive about Addison. I know she is your friend and all but you can't-"

"La-la-la-la" Cooper recites as he uses his index fingers to block out the noise coming into his ears.

Naomi stops mid argument and turns her attention, "Cooper, what are you doing?"

"He hates it when mommy and daddy fight." Violet plainly adds.

"Mommy and Daddy?" Naomi questions but receives no answer as everyone filters out of the uncomfortable situation in the break room.

_**-----**_

"Well I can't say that I will miss all the drama that came storming in with your arrival, Dr. Sloan, but I can say that we will miss your services." Richard says while extending his hand to the man in front of him.

Mark lets out a small chuckle before taking his hand and agreeing that if he ever has to come back to Seattle this will be the first place he stops for when looking for a new job. Their goodbye is simple and professional before Richard has the mind to add, "Don't hurt her son; Addie is like family to Adele and I."

"I know."

"Good. I may be the Chief but I can still fly down there and kick you ass."

"That won't be necessary sir."

"Better not be. You have been warned Sloan."

"Thanks." Mark spins and heads toward the elevator so as to catch the next possible cab to the airport. His head spins in full relief, the kind that comes with knowing, just knowing; you have made a good choice with your life. It was time for some change. Maybe Addison had something on it when she repeated it over and over.

_**-----**_

"Ok, so here's the deal." Naomi adds when walking briskly into Addison's office to find her curled up into her chair reading an article.

She tips her glasses down her nose and peers up at her long time friend, "Yeah?"

"I got you in. I cashed in a favor with Dr. Sevelechek over at St. Ambrose. You have a C-section at 2pm. They'll have the chart ready for you and you can meet the patient and everything." She slumps down in the chair across from the redhead before adding, "You owe me for this, and for keeping your dirty dirty little secrets."

"Thanks, Nae. I really appreciate it."

"I know you do. Do you want to have dinner tonight? Sam has Maya and -"

"And you want to use my house to spy on them and make sure that he doesn't do anything wrong. Gee, I feel so used." She grins while setting down the journal in front of her and trying to focus her attention.

"No."

"Oh, please. It's fine. We can have dinner, inside. With the blinds drawn. That's as good as it is getting." She pauses momentarily before adding, "One more thing, I'm not cooking. I don't want the smell of anything lingering in my house too long."

Naomi throws around the idea for awhile before agreeing. "Is it a control thing?"

"What?"

"Surgery, is it a control thing? Violet says that you need to control something because your immediate world has changed so much that you need to have power over something familiar."

"Violet says this, Violet says that. I don't come to work to be psychoanalyzed behind my back." Realizing that may have been a little harsh she shrugs, "Yeah, it's a control thing."

"I love you Addie, you know that but the control thing has to be surrendered. I can't just call in favors whenever you are having a rough day or week. This is your new life, take a look around. Adjust to it." And with that Naomi rises and exit's the room before her weepy looking friend can add in her two cents.

_**-----**_

"What are you doing here!" Naomi screams and drags Mark off by his arm into a secluded conference room. She doesn't bother flicking on the lights she merely draws the blinds.

"Nice to see you too, boss." Mark retorts pulling out a chair.

"You aren't supposed to be in town until tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know. But I couldn't wait. So what?"

"I haven't told Addison yet is so what!" Naomi takes a seat in her own chair trying to keep her voice down.

"You weren't supposed to tell her, it is called a surprise for a reason." He shakes his head.

"I know that. But she isn't having a very good week." She chuckles inwardly thinking if only Mark knew what she knew, "at all. I need to tell her. She can't take this."

"She okay?" He tries to ask as nonchalantly as possible. He doesn't want to let off the air of someone who is madly deeply in love with the one person who won't give him the time of day, even if it is the inevitable truth.

"Not really. But she will be, just give her some time. Stay away from her until I can explain the situation." Naomi immediately started to regret her offer to let Mark into the practice the day the blood work came back. She knows that the last thing Addison needs is this kind of stress, but Mark is one hell of a surgeon and the revenue he could bring in…well Naomi is a business person too.

"Ok." He states cutting off her line of thought.

Standing instead she tells him to stay and she will show him around because Addison has already left for the hospital. This little choice will bring way too much drama and she can't wait to see the look on Pete's face when he sees Mark strolling the hallways. Pete is bad for Addison and so is Mark but Naomi figures that maybe they will tear each other apart and leave her the hell alone.

_**-----**_

Addison's afternoon really had not gone as she had planned. She hit traffic coming in and was late to greet her patient. A patient, who mind you, was not exactly thrilled about the switch from her normal doctor. Addison did her best to reaffirm and curb all of the woman's questions and fears. She had almost forgotten how difficult and frustrating moms-to-be could act.

The first half of the procedure had been everything she had envisioned. She held the scalpel steady with her long fingers and got the baby out without many complications. He wasn't breathing at first but that issue was soon resolved and then it happened. She watched the open body cavity in front of her disintegrate into a sea of red, red blood. She worked frivolously to find the bleeder as the woman's vitals became less and less stable. She was put under quickly and no sooner than twenty seconds later the monitor went screeching signaling that the whole thing was a lost cause. Her quick hands and able mind were not enough to save the mother and although the baby was fine, she can't help but remark on something she had encountered when working with Karev. What good is a baby without a mother to raise it?

As she scrubbed out, tearing at her useless skin with the soap, she couldn't help but feel responsible. Not in the normal way that a surgeon takes responsibility but in the way that the nagging voice in her head told her that maybe she couldn't do this anymore. Maybe she was too far out of practice and she should have never been here. She should, perhaps, reside herself to just being a clinic doctor because she obviously can't hack it in this world anymore. She hates that annoying pain of guilt in her stomach says that maybe Naomi was right.

"Dr. Montgomery." Charlotte King barks as she heads down the hallway toward the woman.

"Yes." Addison stops her pace and stands towering over the shorter blonde woman.

"Killed a patient already on your first day actually working in the hospital? Nice work, glad we didn't hire you."

Pushing the unreasonable tears to the back of her eyes Addison retorts, "I did my best. There was nothing that could have saved her, if there was I would have done it."

Charlotte pauses, softening for a moment before shoving a chart into her hands. "I know. Dr. Sevelechek wanted me to give this to you. We just found out, they didn't feel the need to disclose her full medical history or we would've known." She strolls off haughtily and leaves Addison with the file full of excuses.

It doesn't matter if there was no logical way the woman could have survived. It doesn't matter that no one else would have expected her to be alive after surgery except her husband. The only thing that matters is that she didn't save her. She has spent so many years proving statistics and cynics wrong that she has a gut feeling that this woman, Lindsay, could have pulled through. Her job is to save people, to do the unspeakable and pull of miracles. So no matter what the chart says all she can feel is guilt for not doing a better job.

The tears come after she hides herself out in a supply closet pushing her back against the closed door. She sobs quietly for a few moments gasping in air before she decides that the pity party has to stop and gathers her rumpled self from the floor and heads out to face the family of the patient. This has always been her least favorite part. There will be yelling she is certain. Maybe some name throwing and hopefully no violence. People do weird things when they lose a loved one.

_**-----**_

"Mark." Pete questions peering out the door of his office.

"Jack..wait Pete." Mark smiles. He knows the mans name and he also knows how to screw with people. Santa Monica is going to be fun.

"Nice to see you again, you here for Addison?"

"No, Addie doesn't know I'm here yet. I took up a job offer." He winks at him and prides himself in using Addison's nickname because he knows her on a level where that is acceptable and he wouldn't be able to. As he watches Pete's face sink he knows round one just went to the new kid.

"Mark." Cooper says as he joins them all in the hall.

"Cooper, nice to see you again." He offers his hand and makes certain to use the right name this time.

"What are you doing in town? Did Addison call?" He states when they finish their stern shake.

"No, I got a job."

"Yeah, and I would like to finish showing him around before Addison gets back and flips her lid again today. So let's move it." Naomi says when she joins them.

"Again?" He questions as she shoos him down the hall.

_**-----**_

"So here is exam room one and your office will be the third one on the left right down there. Mark, are you paying attention?"

"Yeah, got it. I use office three on the left."

Naomi smiles as she watches him stare in at Addison's empty office. "She should be back soon, you should go. Besides you need to go set up at the hospital too, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"The hospital. You need to speak with them and get things straightened out." She says in a melodic voice that suggests she is speaking to a three year old and not a grown man.

"Yeah I do." He turns around suddenly and sends her stepping back a few feet. "How do I get there?"

Naomi catches Sam staring out of the corner of his eye and suggests, "I'll take you there so you don't get lost. Just let me grab my keys."

"Ok." He turns back around and stares at the wooden desk that has held the one thing he has wanted most for the last few months.

_**-----**_

"What was she thinking!" Cooper screeches as Sam closes the conference room door after Naomi's departure.

"I think the best thing is that we all stay calm." Violet says while smiling. "It isn't going to do us any good to get worked up over this. I am sure Naomi has a valid reason for bringing him in."

"Yeah, called he is fun to look at." Pete mocks from his chair.

"Maybe Addison wanted him here?" Cooper tries as he takes a spot next to Violet.

"No, I don't think Addison would do that. No, I am sure she wouldn't do that." Sam says as he pushes his cup into the middle of the long table.

"So what do we do?" Violet asks.

Sam shrugs and sighs offering, "Wait it out."

"Wait what out? This guy isn't going anywhere."

"Pete, you are clearly jealous and it is kind of unbecoming." Violet says while she fiddles with her blue pen.

"Focus!" Cooper shouts at the group. They all snap to attention and continue discussing the ever pressing issue of their day, Mark Sloan in their office.

_**-----**_

"Mr. Evans, we did everything we could." Addison states while managing to hold herself as upright as possible.

"Wait, you are saying….Are you saying. No! No, no. No! Where is she! I want to see her….this isn't happening. It can't be." He says while crumpling down onto the wall.

"Your son is in the nursery when you are ready to see him and I again I am very sorry."

Standing back up he echoes out from his constricted throat, "You did this! You! We never should have agreed to having you operate! We don't even know you…." His voice breaks and the tears start in as Addison stands stricken. "We trusted you, I trusted you! You killed her…"

"Mr. Evans, I did not kill her. Lindsay had a pre-existing condition that wouldn't have allowed her to-"

Effectively cutting her off he shouts, "Go away! Just get away from me. I hate you….I hate you."

She takes a deep breath in and turns on her heels. It certainly wasn't the worst one she has ever done, but it wasn't the best either. Which isn't to say that there can be a best when you are telling someone's loved ones that said person is dead. Still she feels responsible and she can't wait to finish making her notes in the chart so she can escape back to the clinic for the afternoon.

_**-----**_

"Alright so here we are." Naomi states as they step out of her car. "I think Sevelechek is on the fourth floor and try not to do anything that will piss off Dr. King. She is already a thorn in our sides and we don't need anyone else pushing her."

"Ok." Mark says while attempting to catch up to Naomi's quick strides.

They make their way through the doors, heaps of sick patients, anxious family members, and hard-working nurses, doctors, and surgeons. Mark smirks in the elevator that is full of tired faces and exhausted bodies and as the doors ding open he catches a glimpse of the red flamed hair that he has grown to fancy in a way that would never lead to him believing that he would think to use that word. "Uh…" He stutters as they step forward with the group.

"Stay here. I mean it." Naomi warns him like he is a disobedient six year old who can't be trusted alone.

Naomi rushes ahead to catch up with Addison who is making her way toward the nurses station. "Addie!"

Turning around at the sound of a familiar tone she sees Naomi. "Nae…what are you doing here? I can handle this on my own. I don't need any back up."

"I am…wait, what are you talking about?"

Realizing her friend has no idea what she is talking about she quickly changes the subject, "Oh nothing. I…so what are you doing here? I know my way back." She jokes and manages a small chuckle.

"I know, I am showing a client around. So, when are you going back?"

"I don't know." She shrugs and looks down, "I need to change and finish up this chart, then find Sevelechek and I guess I'm gone after that."

"Well, you shouldn't bother with going back to the clinic because you don't have anyone left and it's been a hard week." She pauses momentarily and places her hand on her friend's shoulder. "You should go home…and rest, we are going to have a late night."

"Nae, I'm fine. I'm good even. I got to cut and I feel much better. Besides I have things to do and…" Her voice trails off as her eyes narrow to the male figure standing behind Naomi. "And…I- uh. I… don't need to go…home." She trips and stutters through the last part as her heart rate rises with every step he takes toward her.

"You sure? You…Addison?"

"Huh?" She says re-focusing her eyes.

"You aren't listening again. God Addison! I can't deal with you like this for the next eight months, pull it together."

"Sure Nae, that sounds like a good plan."

"It wasn't a question that required any form of an answer." She stops mid-sentence to turn around and follow Addison's gaze. She spins around glares at Mark who has definitely left the designated area. "Damn it Mark. I told you to stay where you were."

"I don't listen to directions very well." He remarks while quickening his steps.

"I can vouch for that. Mark what are you doing here again?" Her nerves rise sufficiently and she feels her stomach take the now familiar nose dive towards the ground. She swallows hard and forces the nausea away.

"I got a job." He shrugs and he is beginning to grow rapidly annoyed with the question. He is starting to wish that his immediate presence would have been mentioned to someone.

"You got a job?" She echoes before stamping her tennis shoe into the ground and facing her friend, "You hired him!"

"Calm down."

"You hired him! You brought him out here didn't you?"

"Maybe." Naomi manages to etch in the middle of the tirade.

"Maybe, what the hell kind of an answer is that Nae? Maybe he is out here to work for you? I knew you were into your business but this is an all time low."

"I asked her to hire me." Mark says as he watches her face grown red and her nostrils flare.

"What? Why would you do-" She pauses as she sees a recognizable man behind their growing group. She steps away from them and they watch as she nears the tall, well dressed man.

"Who's that?" Mark asks.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Pierce?" Addison asks as he nervously spins around.

"Oh god Addison, I am so happy you are here." He throws himself into her arms before he can stop himself and then immediately pulls back and clears his throat. "Sorry, I just Reagan is in there and they made me leave. We have been trying to get a hold of you."

She glances around and sees what she assumes can only be Elianna with her bright red curls hiding behind her father's leg. "My cell was off, I was in surgery." She feels the instantaneous surge of guilt take over and she her mind begins to race with what could have gone wrong. "What happened? Where is she?"

"We got into an accident trying to get here. She told me to drive slower, she said that I was going too fast and I ran a yellow light and then someone slammed into her side of the car. I don't remember after that very well, there were sirens and now I can't find her and no one will tell me anything other than that she is in surgery and they can't give me update yet." He rattles off completely frazzled and for the first time she notices his appearance and the existence of the sling across the right side of his shoulder and the bandage on his forehead. "Can you, I mean will you find out what is going on….I can't breathe here, I have to know she is alright."

"Yeah. I'll go right now just sit down and take deep breaths. Okay." And then she finds herself saying the one thing that you should never tell the people in the waiting room. "I promise she is okay, I will find her." She isn't sure that her sister is alright and under no circumstances should those words be uttered. But in her world her sister is okay, she has to be. She turns around and heads off to the OR.

"Addison, what was that? Who was that?" Naomi says as she starts to follow behind her.

"That's Pierce, my brother in-law. Reagan is here, there was a car accident. I have to make sure she is okay. I have to make sure that the baby gets out alive." She picks up her pace and rounds the corner and Naomi stops suddenly causing Mark to run into the back of her. "Watch it."

"I think you liked it." He smirks before stepping back and putting an acceptable amount of space between them.

"This is not the time for your stupid little remarks. I am going to go make sure Addison doesn't do something stupid. Go wait with Pierce."

"Who?"

"The man in the waiting room who looks like he just saw a ghost. Go sit with him because I think he needs it and since you work for us and his wife is one of our patients you can fill in. Be. Nice."

"I'm always nice." He smiles and he heads off for the man behind him who has sunk down into one of the green pew-like chairs.

_**-----**_

"I have to go in there! I have to make sure that they are doing everything right." Addison says while struggling against Naomi's figure in front of the doorway.

"No. What you need to do is go re-assure and sit with her husband and your niece. There is nothing you can do in that room and if you go busting in there then we will all lose our privileges in this hospital. And that, I do not need." She gives her a little push. "Go. I'll stay and watch."

"But you don't even know what to look for! And you wouldn't say anything-"

"No, I won't and I don't. I'm here to watch, for you, so you can go be where you need to be."

"I need to be in there."

"No. End of discussion." Addison storms off without another word and Naomi resides herself to thinking she is actually going to have to watch the gross surgery happening with the rest of the awe struck interns in the gallery.

_**-----**_

Pierce quickly hops to his feet when Addison reappears. She shakes her head and explains that no one will let her know anything either, but that Reagan is still alive. He takes his seat again pulling Elianna up onto his lap with his good arm and strokes her hair like his life depended on it.

"You want me to go check, I bet I can-" Mark offers.

"No." She whispers as she quietly takes a seat next to him. She hasn't had to be the person in the waiting room for quiet some time and the uneasy feeling takes a place in her chest as Mark grabs her hand.

He knows, just from the looks, and the demeanor of the people around him that the outcome in this will not be good. He clutches her hand and almost wishes that she was in the mind set to push him away. Instead she holds on just as tight and fixes her eyes to the window waiting out each gut wrenching second that ticks off on the clock in the corner.

* * *


	11. Hard to hold, cold to touch

A/N: Ok, apologies first off because porn and porn related things are not my forte. I tried. Thanks to my beta and everyone for reading and commenting. Have fun...

**_Hard to hold  
Cold to touch  
_****_Fall to pieces  
Treat the rush, in hindsight  
With prime time talk  
All your pain  
Will end here  
Let the doctor  
Soothe your brain, dear  
_**_-Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, "Doctor Blind"_

**_-----_**

In the last 2 hours Mark has had his world flipped on it's ear. Addison has yet to move from her place next to him and he is beginning to wish that she would do something, anything. He would take absolute hysterics, a screaming match, or complete delusional happiness compared to the silence that is currently suffocating the room.

They have had one update in the last two and half hours. One update! And he really wants to go speak with who ever is in charge. He turns to her again, not expecting a change but hoping in vain that she will at least pretend to exist for a moment. He's tried talking to her which lead to a face of stone. He's tried rubbing the back of her clenched hand with his thumb but that soothing motion was met with no change in demeanor either. It's been awhile since he has seen her like this and he would have to admit that he rather enjoys the spunkier, light-hearted Addison that was down here just a short week ago.

Three hours have passed and nothing is different from the moment he took his place next to her. Pierce is still holding fiercely on to his daughter who looks frighteningly like Addison but he chocks that up to family resemblance even though he hasn't seen Reagan since "the wedding". At the two hour and thirty four minute mark he lost all hope in her speaking again. She could be a mute for the rest of her life and he would still love her exactly the same. So at the three hour point he is still remarking over how ridiculous that is and what this woman has done to his macho side when she stands briskly and looks him square in the eye.

"It's been too long. I need to go in there. I need to find Naomi." Her voice is deadpan and her eyes are laced with total fear. The thing that scares him the most is the edge of determination in her intonation.

"It's been too long?" Pierce asks while looking up to find her.

"It hasn't been too long. Addison, we don't know what happened or how much damage there is. They haven't told us much so they could be in there for the next seven hours and she could still make it."

"Surgeries last that long?" Pierce asks of no one in particular.

"Yeah. Right Addison?" He stands with her in order to block her from the hallway in case she decides to bolt.

"Yes, they do." She takes her seat again not noticing her over full bladder or the aching of her feet. She is starting to go numb, she doesn't feel anything.

**_-----_**

There were a lot of reasons Addison moved to Los Angeles, or Santa Monica, whatever part of the city she is in right now but none of them were so that she could be close to Mark. In fact, it was quite the opposite but today as she sits with her hands folded in her lap she can't help but feel thankful that he is here.

He probably should have told her he was moving, and Naomi probably should have been a good friend and said something before now but they didn't and so here she is. Here she sits staring, now, down at her purple scrubs wishing that this wasn't happening. Wishing that she had the strength to get up and march down the corridor to demand knowing what is going on in there. Wishing that she could tell someone about this baby growing inside of her, anyone but Naomi. Wishing that for once in her life things didn't have to be as screwed up as they always seemed.

However, for all of the things going wrong at this very instant the only thing she can focus on is her baby sister. She got a glimpse, a brief one, before Nae pulled her away from the gallery and she knows from the sinking feeling in her chest that the situation is grim. She wants to be let in there, to be given a chance to save her niece and possibly her sister because the last thing anyone needs right now is for this to come down the way it is most certain to. There's hope but she's not telling anyone that. She won't be the one to shatter anyone else's world today. She had her fill of that hours ago.

**_-----_**

"Has anyone seen Naomi?" Sam calls out down the hall. Randomly doors pop open and he has to repeat himself to get any form of an answer.

Pete sticks his head out to offer, "She left with the new guy."

"About, gosh almost four hours ago." Violet adds.

"Wonder what they could be doing." Cooper says as he makes a childish face.

"Wait, what new guy? And Cooper you better not be talking about my ex-wife like that."

"Mark, Naomi hired him. I thought she would have at least told you. She was all worried about Addison finding out. Hey did you know he calls her Addie? Who does that?" Pete asks as he strolls down to Sam's office.

"Mark, Mark Sloan?"

"Yeah." He enters the office and take a seat opposite Sam and the large wooden desk separating the two.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Tall guy, always wearing black. Short hair."

"Built."

"Well, I wouldn't say he is built-"

"Oh, come on Pete. He is better looking than both of us put together and he is out with my Naomi. This is not happening. I am calling her and I am putting a stop to this right now." Sam says as he reaches for his cell phone.

"You tell her man." Pete remarks as he lifts his feet up and places them on the desk. Sam slaps them away as he gets Naomi's voicemail and clams his phone shut. "Voicemail?"

"Yeah. They aren't… no it is Mark, then again it is Mark." Sam's voice dribbles off as he tries to rationalize her absence.

"Maybe he is here for Addison, or do we call her Addie?" He asks, and he really can't get past the use of a rather cute nickname.

"You don't call her anything. You can call her Dr. Montgomery if you need something, or even Addison…but no not Addie. I call her Addie, her friends get to call her that."

"I'm her friend." Pete shrugs like that is a commonly known fact of life.

"You better not be. I told you to stay away from her."

"I can be away and be her friend."

"Maybe some people can, but not you. You know no boundaries. Just don't talk to her from now on and save me all the hassle." Sam remarks as he picks up his phone again. He dials and this time leaves a voicemail as Pete leaves his office.

**_-----_**

It has been three hours and Naomi is pretty sure that she can't feel her ass anymore because of these ridiculous seats that the interns find so comfortable that they could be sleeping in. This is not her area of expertise but she has seen a few surgeries here and there. She went to medical school and she has a vague sense of what should and shouldn't be going on down there. From her count Reagan has coded four times on the table. She is tired of counting because it happens about every forty minutes or so. The people below her working a slow melodic dance quickly spring to life and begin talking in hurried tones and instruments fly around and then suddenly we are back to the waltz again.

She forces her eyes to stay open she forces her stomach not to lurch as she watches all of the blood draining from bags into her body and the blood that is covering every doctor and nurse within the three foot radius of the table. That was code number two. Something with a bleeder and then it was everywhere and Naomi practically had to lunge from the hard plastic to hit the trash can in the corner of the gallery in time. The interns mocked her and she met their remarks with a stern glare. Normally she doesn't have a problem with blood, she is a doctor after all, but it all changes when it is someone you know under the knife. She can't for the life of her figure out what drew Addison to this.

"I don't even know why she is sitting in here." The blonde haired one behind her remarks.

"I know right, she has like been there the whole time." The other one affirms and Naomi silently rolls her eyes at the improper use of grammar taking place and vows that her daughter will never speak like that.

"Maybe she is visitor of something. Maybe she is like CIA and that is her boss and…" The voices drone on as they come up with ridiculous ideas and she wonders how in the world these people have time to conjure up the creativity necessary for the tales.

"You are getting way to ahead of yourself" She says as she turns around to face the annoying children behind her.

They look surprised that she is talking to them let alone the fact that she may have, or may have not, heard everything they have uttered in the last two hours and some odd minutes. "What?" The brave one asks.

"I'm not with the CIA, I'm not your new boss, I'm not the world's oldest medical student, and I am definitely not an alien."

"Oh…sorry." The other one stutters out and then goes back to whispering to her friend.

Naomi quickly turns back around, "Oh my god. Shut up. Just shut up okay? I'll tell you the story and them you both can pass it along to your little friends and there will be no more mystery, got it?" They nod, of course because for some reason they find her absolutely enthralling.  
"That person down there, the one you all find so amusing, is my best friend's sister. I am sitting in here so she doesn't break down the OR doors and try to operate herself, because god help us all she would do that sort of thing. So it's my friend down there, and it's my best friend anxiously pacing the waiting room, my friend's husband sitting clutching their daughter's hand….so just shut up already. Oh, and I'm a doctor too, and I own my own clinic which I am certain is more than you two will ever be able to say." She doesn't wait for confirmation of their understanding before she turns back around to see code number five and then she knows.

She knows that they are fighting a losing battle. That they will never win this war and for every inch of progress forward they gain they are leaping back an easy foot. She watches them step back from the table and before she can stop herself she is rushing to the damn intercom and demanding that they not let her bleed out like it is a lost cause. She watches as the designated surgeon steps in to remove the baby safely because almost all of the injury occurred in the chest and head region and no one thought that getting the baby out was an issue before now. The kid is lucky already, Naomi knows that much.

"You can't do this, you can't just stop in the middle of surgery! She is still alive." Naomi finds herself screaming. She hears her voice echo through the large room below as they all turn individually to see who it is that is yelling at them.

She feels a small hand being placed on her shoulder as she is being led from the room and she hears those stupid interns talking about a waste of the last three hours like a life lost is simply a bad surgery for them and nothing more. This is something more and Naomi doesn't want to be the one who has to go back to the crowded waiting room with a team of surgeons and snatch away someone's hope.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"What do you think you are doing?" Charlotte questions in her slow southern tone as she leads Naomi from the gallery.

"I'm doing what you should be doing. They can't stop. They can't." It's a futile point that doesn't even need to be made.

"They can stop and they will. There is no sense in wasting this hospitals resources and tying up an OR. Dr. Sevelechek gave them the go ahead to end this whenever they deemed appropriate, so I will not have you in there screaming at a very dignified bunch because "they can't, they can't." Her face turns to a scowl as she stops Naomi outside and forces her into a wall with her presence and nothing more.

"It isn't about the OR Charlotte and it isn't about resources. You know we could pay for all of this out of pocket. You have to keep going."

"Listen to yourself, do you hear how illogical that argument sounds?"

Naomi scuffs her heel against the hard tile and feels like a three year old being scolded for something she shouldn't have said. "Yes."

"Good, now I'm going to let you back in there and you can watch but stop disrupting the efficiency of my hospital. Got it?"

"Yes." She answers again trying to push the emotions out of her head and letting the good sensed doctor take their place.

"I'm watching you." It comes out more like a creepy threat then she had intended it but she really doesn't care as she turns and storms away with her lab coat flowing behind her.

**_-----_**

"Maybe one of us should go check on them." Cooper offers as he shoves a slice of apple into his gaping mouth.

"Naomi is a big girl and you all need to stop interrupting her life. Let her move on." Violet adds as she kicks up her feet onto her glass topped desk.

"Well, someone should do something. Addison should have been back by now and Dell had to push all of her afternoon patients to tomorrow." Pete says as he enters holding a mug full of steaming coffee.

"Oh, coffee. I need a good pick me up." Violet notes.

"You need more help than a little pick me up." Cooper mocks.

Sam shifts and lays his head back against an office chair. "Guys, can we focus here. They are all missing."

"What am I missing?" Dell asks as he enters and plops down into the open chair on the left side of the room.

"Nothing." Violet states.

"Oh, are we doing that whole case study on the reasons why Cooper will never get a woman again?"

"That wasn't funny." Cooper adds while throwing a piece of apple at him which he catches and instantly starts munching on.

"It wasn't a case study Dell, I was trying to help a friend with a problem."

"That's not what you said in the hall when we were-"

Violet opens her mouth effectively stopping him, "Dell, you want something to do? Why don't you scamper off to your post and tell me who I have this afternoon.

Dell points as he slumps back further into the chair, "You have your schedule right in front of you."

Sam watches his two friends, well one friend and one receptionist-like guy who won't quit hitting on his ex as they argue for a few minutes before he puts a stop to the whole thing. "You two need to knock it off. All we ever do here is bicker, we can't even stop long enough to concentrate on our patients or a task before we are all back at it again."

Pete shrugs as he drains the contents of his cup. "He has a point, but then again it is all his fault."

"What!" Sam shouts.

Pete relaxes and sets the mug down on the table next to him, "We know that divorce is hard but you are killing us with it. Look around, we used to be just fine and now-"

Cooper stands and finishes for him, "Now we are all falling apart because of you two."

"This is not my fault. Violet you may never love again because you are too hung up on Alan, Cooper you haven't had a date that wasn't from the internet in years, Pete…god good do I even need to say it, and Dell you are a child. You make your own problems." He begins gesturing and pointing with his hands as his voice grows louder. "This doesn't come down on me." He exits the room in a dramatic sweep leaving the four puzzled.

Cooper looks confused enough to ask, "It is his fault right? We have been saying it for months."

"It is his fault all right." Pete smiles.

"Calling other people out on their problems to avoid your own, that's an issue." Violet says while shuffling papers on her desk.

Dell rises to his feet, "He makes a good point though, don't you think?" With that he leaves and heads back to his desk leaving the three with their own thoughts.

**_-----_**

Three hours, twenty seven minutes, and four seconds have passed since the world came to screeching halt, not that he is counting or anything. After Addison's last outburst she has been perfectly still and quiet in an eerily frightening way. Watching her makes him doubt himself and he is about to grab a nurse to get an update when she stands up again.

She drops the hem of the purple scrub top she has been pulling at for the last thirty minutes or so and rises confidently to her feet.

"I'm going in there. Don't you dare try and stop me either. I have to know what is going on." She begins to stalk away as Mark catches her left wrist and spins her around. "Let go!" She aches out as she struggles against his slipping grip.

He pushes her backwards down the hall without words and shoves her into the closest open door. It happens to be a darkened on-call room and he is more than grateful that it appears empty.

"Damn it, let go of me!" She screeches as he drops her wrists and prepares for her to leave the room. Instead she stays staring at him expectantly with her hand on her hip.

Mark is still a firm believer in the fact that actions speak ten times the volume words ever will. So he crosses the room bridging the gap between them. He has only been in town four six hours and three have them have been spent watching her and waiting for her to fall apart. She isn't falling yet so he takes the opportunity to roughly place his lips upon hers in a hard kiss.

She fights with her fists beating against his chest for a moment before giving in and parting her mouth so that he can have better access. He threads his fingers through the shining hair he has missed and takes a moment to slow the intensity down. Her fingers trace his defined muscles through his shirt as their tongues duel for dominance in the enclosed area and she suddenly reaches for the buttons and begins undoing them quickly.

He stops her hands with his own and pushes them down meaning to pin them against the wall but before he can get them there she reaches the front of his slacks and begins a rubbing pattern that makes him groan so loudly that he has to break their kiss. He pulls her hand away again and slowly pushes her up against the door carefully placing his leg in between hers with no open space so that she can't start her routine again. He pulls away from her lips breathlessly and knows that if he doesn't stop soon he will do things they will both regret in an hour.

"I'm not having sex with you. Not right now, not like this." He states as she reaches her hands up and cups his face bringing their mouths back together.

"Uh-huh" She murmurs against his lips as her tongue slips inside.

He instinctively finds himself reaching for the strings on her scrub pants before his brain kicks in again. "Addison, no."

She reaches between them and strokes his growing erection. "Are you sure about that?" She says it with a wicked smile and he hates that she knows that he is always weak when it comes to her.

He takes three steps back intentionally to get some air and some perspective. "I'm sure." They stand silently for a moment and he waits for the face of disappointment but it doesn't come.

"I don't want it to be like this. I've waited a long time and it's not going to happen in some dirty on-call room in a hospital I have never been to." He has waited a while. After the end of the bet and the subsequent fiasco of Addison's impending departure he found solace in a some stupid blonde nurse but since her actual departure he has found himself oddly celibate.

"You're right." She echoes out and mentally slaps herself for thinking that doing something, even if it was Mark, was a good solution to filling the gap that etches itself into her heart with each passing moment. "I need to go and I..uh, I- shouldn't have done any of that."

"It's a stressful time." He acknowledges as she reties her pants.

"Yeah, something like that. I need to go." She turns to the door and opens it quickly to escape the mistakes she just made. Her stomach jumps at the thought of it and she quickly decides to reroute herself to the bathroom first.

**_-----_**

Naomi has sat silently praying for the last twenty seven minutes and forty two seconds, not that she is counting either. She isn't really big on religion but if there is one thing she knows it is that her friend doesn't need her sister's death thrown on her lap too. She has more than enough on her plate especially with Mark back now. So she prays to whatever god or deity out there that will have her; she prays like it is going out of style.

At minute twenty nine and second thirty six she hears them clamor below her again. She opens her eyes and unclasps her hands that she was wringing together. She watches as the as the tiny baby is wheeled form the room and the tall surgeon in the middle of the group pulls down his mask. She makes her promise not to scream out at them and takes in a deep staggering breath. Number two, a petite woman on the left side of the room removes her hand's from Reagan's chest and pulls down on her mask exhaustedly. Number three, an obese man with what Naomi is guessing is very little hair pulls back from her head and then the tall one; number one, the leader makes the announcement.

"Time of death 17:34."

He rips the gown from his body and throws it near the waste area but doesn't seem to care that he missed. Number two bids her a quick goodbye and Naomi knows that number three will do the same. She stands with her feet feeling like cement; like she was the one who just lost a little sister. As she stumbles form the room intent on finding the doctors before they get to Pierce she feels as though a thousand arrows are pricking her core. There isn't anything quite like watching someone you know die, it is a surreal experience. She forces the tears backwards into her throat and picks up her pace heading for the scrub room. She laughs inwardly as she thinks and you thought it was a bad day this morning, now look what has happened.

**_-----_**

After purging the contents of her stomach, which unbeknownst to her was actually a viable amount, Addison headed back toward the OR floor. She pushed the button for the elevator citing morning/all freaking day sickness as a good enough reason to miss out on the opportunity of exercise that the stairs could provide. She subconsciously fiddled with the strings on her pants and tapped her shoes against the gleaming white tile.

When the doors dinged to announce their opening she didn't hear them. She didn't hear anything until someone was shouting at her to move out of the way of the gurney coming down the hall. She stepped back in a rush and ended up against the wall alone again with thoughts. She stood there briefly before she had decided that the tears that may come were far enough away from her eyes and she pushed the button for the elevator once more.

**_-----_**

"So, has anyone called their cell phones?" Cooper asked as they all march into the conference room for a meeting about the new guy.

"I haven't." Violet volunteers and then backed herself with, "What? I am popular, I was busy. I'm sure they are fine. They are big girls."

"I tried calling Naomi but I don't think she would pick up even if she wasn't okay." Sam said as he slid the chart in front of him across the table and to Pete.

"I don't know Addison's number, no one will give it to me." He remarks while opening the folder.

"There's a damn good reason too, so don't you go about asking for it anymore." Sam retorts.

"I tried both of their phones, because I am a good friend like that, and no one answered. Then I tried the hospital, because I am good friend like that too, and no one would tell me anything." Cooper responds as he pulls the file from Pete's grasp.

Pete shrugs as he relents and hands over the bulky file folder. "Maybe we should go look for them?"

"Maybe I should go look for them and you can go grab a drink with Tessa or whatever her name is."

"Alexis." Pete corrects, "We could all go-"

He is cut short in finishing his sentence because of a, "Holy crap!" That bursts out of Cooper's mouth. He suddenly feels self conscious as all eyes fall upon him and he scrambles to back himself. "Sorry, this guy is…well he is kind of amazing."

"Yeah I saw that too, but what is he doing here? What are they both doing here? They are surgeons for crying out loud."

Violet steals Mark's file and begins digging in. "Sometimes people need a change Cooper." They all pause as she reads through, "Ok, I officially hate him too. What is he doing here?" She slides it back at Sam who ignores all of the questions and carefully takes the file and shoves it under his pile of paperwork.

"Did you know he was coming?" Violet asks.

"No, but I am sure Naomi would've told me if she planned this. Right?" He asks. They all glance around the room at each other but no one comes up with any sort of response so he stands and announces, "We should all go find them."

Cooper stands excitedly, "Yay! Field trip with Daddy." He smiles as a pen goes whizzing by his face and remarks, "That never gets old."

**_-----_**

Naomi pushes herself from the scrub room wall after her conversation with the attending surgeons. They agreed to let her find Addison, Mark, and Pierce first and then they would convene in the large conference room for a discussion of the actual medical findings and address any questions or concerns anyone had about the deceased or new baby-girl Montgomery-Vechio.

Naomi struts her way down the long corridor and finds Mark pressed up against the door of an on call room.

"Where's Addison?" She demands.

"I don't know." He answers softly as he presses his head up against the wood of the door a little harder.

"What? Did you lose her or…oh my god, you didn't. No, not while she was waiting around while her sister was in surgery. You seduced her into an on-call room! What was all the bullshit about needing a change and being here for work and not Addie about then?

He stands placing his hands in his pocket before he answers her. "I didn't seduce her. She got upset and ran off, okay. You satisfied now?"

"And you didn't go after her?"

"No."

She takes the opportunity to whack him with the her palm on the back of his head. "Idiot."

"Ow! Christ Naomi, when did the whole 'you can beat your new workers' law come into effect?" He screams as he reaches his hand up to his head.

"This is California, we do what we want."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks." He finishes rubbing the bump down on his scalp before walking with her.

"Which way did she go?"

He stands a little straighter and starts moving his feet faster to catch up with her. "Didn't see." 

"Nice work Sloan. I ask you to do one simple thing-"

"Ok, technically you asked me to baby-sit Pierce not Addison-"

She cuts him off in turn and remarks, "Yeah and you couldn't manage that either. I am assuming he is still in the waiting room."

"I guess so." They continue on down the hallway in silence before he can find the voice and heart to ask, "Hey Naomi?"

"Yeah?" She answers back quietly. She knows exactly what is coming and she figures this is good practice for when she has to tell the other two but it doesn't make it hurt any less for either of them.

Mark manages to find his doctor's voice and asks most professionally, "She didn't make it, did she?"

She takes a long breath and replies the answer he already knows in his heart and his head. "No."

A few strides later and he is breaking the unspoken code of silence again. "Naomi?"

"Mark."

"Why don't you go find Pierce and let him know and I will keep looking for Addison. He deserves an answer, he has been waiting almost four hours."

"Why don't you go tell him and I'll find her?" She quips.

"It's not my place with him. He may not believe me. Please, let me find Addie. I need to be the one to do this."

"She's my best friend Mark, I have to be there for her."

He stops in his tracks and forces her to turn around and look at him. "What?" She questions.

He shifts thoughtlessly on his feet before replying, "I've seen Addison lose it before. When Derek left and look, it isn't pretty and she is going to hate whoever tells her so it may as well be me. I don't want her to get mad at you."

"That's kind of selfless."

"I don't know about that."

"No, it is. And I'll let you do it but bring her to the conference room on the fourth floor when she is done doing whatever it is that you think is going to happen."

"Ok, and hey Naomi?"

"Yes." She answers growing slightly weary of her own name.

"Don't tell anyone I said all that, we can't have my reputation slipping. Especially in my new place of work."

She smiles her first real smile of the day. "I got your back, that's what the clinic is all about."

He grins back and replies, "That's nice to hear. I was getting sick of all the competition and stupid mind games before."

"I can imagine. Don't let her hurt you." She warns before tiptoeing back to the elevator.

He puffs out his chest momentarily before noting, "She can't hurt me." As he wanders toward the OR doors he can't figure out who he is bluffing. This is the only person that has ever been able to hurt him.

_**-----**_

Addison climbed into the gallery only to see the team already cleaning and sterilizing the floors. She tires to envision what took place before she got there. How the surgery would have gone if it was just a simple c-section. She visualizes the cutting strokes and the baby's cry that would fill the air and she is suddenly ambushed by the memories of a case that she, Derek, and Mark amongst others had to work on back in New York.

They all stood in their designated areas waiting their turn to be the one to cut next. Derek was still working on the speech center where the hematoma had formed when she stepped in and retrieved the baby from it's warm hiding place in it's mother. They lost her three minutes after the baby was removed and the trio stepped back silently as the time was called and the monitors flicked off. She had done her job and there was no way she could have saved her but the agony still pained her like it was her sole responsibility.

Suddenly she is gasping for breath and feeling her heart race as a hand is placed on her slumped shoulder.

"Addison." Mark etches out of his tightened throat.

"Say it." She answers without looking behind her to see him. "Say it or I won't believe you."

Mark takes a step closer bracing for the storm as he prepares himself. "They did everything they-"

"No, just say it." She remarks without feeling in her voice. She sounds distant and cold.

"Reagan is dead."

She nods numbly as the tears build in her throat and she swallows them down to her secret place of pain. Without another word she strides from the room spinning out of his grasp and heading for the nurse's station.  
_**  
**_

_**-----**_

"Give me the chart!" Addison shouts at the sniveling intern behind the counter.

"Mrs. Mrs.…I don't have the chart yet." She bumbles afraid to look up.

"Well find it, and it's Dr. Montgomery, Thank you." Addison retorts and spins herself back around to see the waiting room sans Pierce and Elianna.

**_-----_**

Mark had quickly underestimated not only her response but her power as she flung free from his hold on her. She spun around and headed down the hall and he trailed close behind watching the hurricane gather speed and intensity. He watched as she shouted at the poor intern and corrected her enough for the situation to be embarrassing.

Seconds later he is following her again and this most certainly does not look promising. He gazes as she knocks on the wooden door in front of her and is greeted with a, "Come in."

He follows behind her quickly enough to catch the tail end of the conversation happening inside the Chief of Staff's office.

"You should've let me operate! I said I was fine. But oh no, you let three highly under qualified surgeons do my bidding and it left her dead. I want the chart and I want it now. I need to know what happened in there."

Charlotte watches the turmoil boiling inside the newest member of the clinic's staff before quietly replying, "I assure you that our staff is every bit as talented as you think you are and I know that there were no mistakes made inside that OR."

"Talented…" She scoffs, "Please, you have no idea who I am and yet you don't hesitate to let someone less competent operate."

"Oh would you listen to your ego go. I'll get you the chart when I can, until then I suggest you meet with the people in the conference room like you were instructed."

Half expecting some serious backlash from Addison because the younger blonde woman is acting like her mother, Mark steps in next to her and lightly takes her arm. She says nothing and allows him to lead her from the room and into the hallway.

"This is your fault." She mutters into the stagnant air around her as he pushes her down the hall.

"This is not my fault Addison and I am sorry you have to feel that way."

"How else is there to feel? If you wouldn't have shoved me into a stupid on call room to 'talk' then I would have been able to get in the OR in time to help them."

He stops cutting across her path and forcing her movement to come to a striking halt. "Look at me." She turns her head defiantly. "Look at me Addie." He repeats as he reaches up to turn her chin with his fingers. "They were never going to let you in there. I know that you know that somewhere deep down inside. You couldn't have saved her."

She quickly slaps his fingers away and turns on her squeaking shoe. "Yes I could have." Is her only reply as she makes her way back down toward the elevator.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Addison finds the conference room lit up with Pierce drying his eyes and Elianna clinging to him completely confused and terrified by the whole situation. She stands up a little straighter before forcing a smile onto her face and entering the room and taking a seat next to her friend. As the doctors begin talking she blanks out. She feels Naomi's hand graze hers under the table and she instinctively clenches it as the lecture continues to drone on.

He was right and she knows it. Somewhere deep down, in a place that she isn't talking to anyone about, she knows that she couldn't have saved her. Unfortunately, for Addison that is, perhaps, the worst part of this entire debacle.

* * *


	12. Four walls around

A/N: Alright, so this chapter is mostly used as set up for the next and I am not too particularly fond of it but it needed to happen. Thanks to my beta for reading and finding my mistakes and to everyone who is reading and commenting, I really love the feedback!**_  
_**

**_ -----_**

_**Who do you blame for the pain that's been inflicted**_

_**Four walls around, you inside, but the air's been evicted**_

_-Tarot, "Sunken Graves"_

**_-----_**

"That's a pretty shitty hand to be dealt." Cooper says as Violet muffles his mouth with her hand.

"She's right inside there for crying out loud Cooper."

"I should go." Pete mumbles as he turns hotly on his heels and heads toward the hospital doors.

"Pete!" Sam calls out a little too late. "What's his deal?"

"Anna." Violet plainly remarks as she removes her hand from Cooper's mouth.

"He needs to get over that."

"I've tried. He says he is over it." She returns as she takes the opportunity to glance into the conference room to her right.

"Should we do anything?" Cooper asks.

"I don't know that there is anything we can do." Sam returns.

"We just need to be supportive and understanding. The rest will fall into place, I've seen this a hundred times." Violet adds.

"Oh, they're coming." Cooper shouts as he ducks behind the corner and the other two come bounding after him.

**_-----_**

"Thank you for everything." Addison states while shaking what Naomi likes to refer to as 'number one'.

"We are so sorry for you loss." He remarks as he pulls his hand back and heads with his associates down the hall.

"Pierce?" Addison asks.

"Yeah." He chokes out as he drags Elianna down the hall behind him.

"I can take her if you want. I mean, while you go look at your new daughter. I can watch Ellie."

"Addison, I don't think that that-" Naomi starts in.

"I want to." She says as she turns to her friend with a weak smile.

"Ok." Naomi says as she surrenders her hand in the air.

"It's…uh…well sure, I guess." He lets go of her small hand and pushes her toward her Aunt.

"It's alright Ellie. Come here." Addison says as she crouches down immediately regretting the decision as her back explodes in a series of aching flames. Today has been too long.

Pierce heads down the hallway with his head hung low and his gate devoid of any and all confidence. He picks his feet up carefully, almost deliberately placing them down in front of one another so as not to trip. Today was not supposed to end this way. His daughter's birthday was not supposed to remind him of the tragedy of the date's happenings.

"No! Daddy!" Elianna screams as she takes off after him. If Pierce can hear her he isn't letting on. She reaches him and clutches onto his leg refusing to let him take another step.

"Ellie.." And that is all he can get out before the tears set in and roll down his face and he falls to his knees sobbing. Addison is quick behind them and places a comforting arm around his back and tries to soothe him with words she doesn't quite believe herself.

**_-----_**

"How is she?" Violet asks out of genuine concern as they all convene for their morning meeting in the conference room.

Naomi takes a quick glance out the window before remarking, "You can ask her yourself in about thirty seconds after she grabs her files."

"She's here!" Cooper explodes before he can stop himself.

"That takes a pretty determined person." Pete adds while flipping through his files.

Mark takes a look at Pete next to him and grins. "That's Addie." He still prides himself in using her nickname for whatever he can get out of the man.

"Listen, I want a lunch meeting while she is with her one o'clock patient so clear up your schedules and we are meeting down in the parking lot."

"Naomi." Sam scoffs, "You make it sound like we are having some secret society thing."

"Maybe it is." She returns.

"Maybe what is?" Addison asks when she walks in with her files under one hand and a cup of juice in the other.

"No coffee Add?" Mark asks when she takes a seat directly across from him.

"I'm trying to cut down. No need anymore."

"You love coffee."

"Can we get started please? What do we have today?" Naomi asks trying to divert all attention to herself. It is futile and everyone remains staring at Addison for the remainder of the meeting when they aren't busy pulling out files and talking nonsense.

**_-----_**

"Ok, Addison this is weird. Are you okay? And you have to tell me because I am your best friend. Don't you dare lie to me." Naomi says as she pulls a chair up in Addison's office as her morning patients have been finished.

Addison takes in a long breath before replying, "Yeah why wouldn't I be?"

Naomi can't stop the words from bubbling over and out comes, "Because your sister died in an operating room yesterday night." She shakes her head and tries not to soak up the pain in the room that should belong to her friend. "You shouldn't be here."

"Actually I needed to talk to you about that." Addison quickly quips.

"Thank god. I can't believe you came in this morning. Just go home. And I will come by later with ice cream, oh… and cake and we will do our thing."

"That's not what I meant."

Naomi rolls her eyes and indulges her ever so slightly, "Then what did you mean?"

"Well, I have about a million and one things to do and no patients after three so I was hoping I could leave early in order to accomplish some of those things." Addison replies as she shifts back in her chair forcing the lump in her throat to disappear.

"Things?" Naomi replies as she begins to feel tired from this battle of wills already.

"Yeah, arrangements. I need to call the funeral home and set up that and then write an obituary. I have a lot to do."

"Sounds like it. Why, if you don't mind me asking, isn't Pierce handling this?"

"I think it is all a little too much for him still-"

Naomi stops her right there because this is hell to watch, "And it isn't for you?"

"No. Anyway, he is overwhelmed and our father is dead and her mother is god knows where so that kind of leaves me. This is my job. I need to do this for him."

"What about what you need Addison?" Naomi replies as she shuffles back in her chair and rests her head in her hands intent on waiting for a decent response.

"I don't need anything, well other than a magical cure for morning sickness, but I think a lot of women would benefit from that so it isn't just me." She grins because she thinks it is appropriate not because she can remember anything that she has said in the last twenty four hours.

"This isn't the time to joke."

"I wasn't joking." Addison retorts suddenly growing defensive.

"Ugh…whatever. Do whatever you want. Just call me later and don't run anyone over with your car." Naomi says as she stands. It is one thing to be determined, it is another to be relentless.

"Ok." Addison replies quietly as another wave of nausea hits and she has to excuse herself quickly.

"And you need to tell someone about that!" Naomi calls out after her knowing full well where she is headed.

**_-----_**

"Ok, we are going to have to make this quick." Mark states as he joins the rest of the group in the parking lot.

"Oh, you want us to believe you have patients already?" Pete asks.

"As a matter of fact I have a one thirty that will bring in more revenue for this clinic then you did the entire last month." Mark replies.

"Break it up." Naomi says as she emerges from the brick building and takes a leaning position up against the wall.

"So why are we here again?" Violet asks as she has a seat on the sidewalk.

"Addison. And Violet be honest with me here. What would you say after being around her today?" Naomi asks even though she already knows the answer.

"Well she isn't coping, she isn't dealing at all from what I can see. She just pretends it isn't happening. I kind of admire the strength it takes to keep up that charade." She only wishes that she had that kind of resolve left in her life and she quickly decides that she likes Addison based on this fact alone.

"That won't change the facts." Pete chimes in.

"What would you know?" Mark asks as he checks his watch.

"A lot more than your hot shot ass likes to think."

"You are nothing more than a quack so forgive my lack of respect."

"I went to med-"

"Shut up. Both of you shut up." Sam yells as he joins them.

"Now see that could have been entertaining, maybe they will fight someday." Cooper says while taking a seat next to Violet.

"So what do we all do?" Naomi asks.

"Wait." Is Violet's response.

"Wait?" They all echo.

"Yes, wait until she needs you. She is going to break sooner or later and all we can do is be supportive and understanding. She needs that."

"Ok, until then any suggestions?" Sam questions.

"Is shouldn't take too long. Maybe the end of the day. The denial will wear off and-" She stops short when she sees that Sam, Naomi, and Mark are all laughing and looking at each other. "What? Did I spill something on my shirt again or something." They all continue on. "Come on guys, help me out here." She says as she pulls at her shirt trying to see the mysterious spill.

"It's not that." Mark answers first.

"Well then?"

"You don't know Addison." Sam throws in.

"I know that. I am saying from a professional stand point." Violet says as she stands back up and dusts herself off.

"No, this could take weeks. Oh, god I can't stand her for weeks like this. It is ridiculous." Naomi adds as she stand back up off the wall and stretches her arms out toward the warm sun.

"She was in denial about the state of her marriage for years Naomi, years." Mark chimes in.

"Everyone has their own way of dealing with things." Pete adds in quietly.

"Yeah." Violet affirms as she directs a sympathetic glance his way.

"I need to go, patients." He says as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks away defeated.

"So why are you working here?" Cooper asks of Mark as he shields his eyes form the sun when looking up.

"This is not why we are here Coop, that meeting is later. Naomi you got my memo?"

"Yes, Sam. I got it. And I think we should hold it at your house." She retorts.

"What?"

"To watch Addison and have your stupid meeting. We can do both, it will be multi-tasking."

"Hey guys, what are you all doing out here?" Addison asks as she eyes the group on the way to her car.

"It's a thing we do." Cooper throws in quickly.

"Yeah we like to come out occasionally and grab a few rays." Violet adds while trying not to laugh.

"It helps. Have a nice day Addison, call if you need anything." Sam adds quickly before the rest of the group starts turning hysterical.

Mark takes the opportunity to run after Addison and he catches her before they reach the pretty red thing he loves almost as much as her. "Hey, Addie?"

"Yeah?" She turns around.

"You okay? You need anything?" He asks cautiously. Since he has seen the meltdown before he is just patiently buying time until it happens. Better sooner than later though.

"Nope, I'm good." She replies while she digs for her keys. He immediately wraps his arms around her small figure and hugs her tightly.

She closes her eyes momentarily willing herself not to cry in front of him. She has plenty of time for that later because she is sure when it starts it won't stop. "Mark." She chokes out.

He pulls back slightly preparing for the waterworks that come when her voice sounds strained like that. "Yeah?"

"I couldn't breathe. I'll see you later." She says as she unlocks her door and slips inside forcing the engine over before he can get a word in. He watches as she takes off down the street and he knows that this will be so much worse than the affair disaster. He mentally notes to jot down her address and to buy a car and house somewhere within the next few hours. If anyone can make this happen, he can. She needs somewhere to feel safe and comfortable when the walls come crashing down around her.

**_-----_**

"Pierce?" Addison asks as she lightly knocks on the door.

There is no voice inside so she tries to doorbell too just in case.

"Pierce, open the door. It's me, I'm not going to do anything." Addison remarks tapping her heel against the concrete in front of his door. She looks around quickly taking in the surrounding her sister deemed to be appropriate for the second half of her life. The large blue house is Victorian style and is an odd sight for this part of town. She has a feeling that was all her sister's doing. She knocks again, this time harder. "Ellie, are you in there? Can you open the door for Daddy, it's Aunt Addison."

She pulls her hand back quickly as the silver gleaming door knob turns slowly and the door opens backwards. She steps in and her eyes devour everything they can see. The style is clean and classic, not something she figured Reagan would have gone for but she likes it nonetheless. "Ellie where is Daddy?"

"Daddy is sad." She says as she steps back quickly from her Aunt.

"I know and that's okay. It's okay to be sad, you know that too right?"

She nods as her frazzled curls bounce in congruence with her head. "Yes. Daddy says that Mommy is in heaven with all the angels." She states plainly as she plays with her purple skirt.

"Well Daddy is right, where is he?" She doesn't get a vocal response as the girl grabs her hand and begins to pull her toward the dark wooden stairs.

"Come on." She urges.

Addison quickly pulls her heels off and begins climbing the stairs with her younger counterpart. Elianna pulls away and pushes open the door to what Addison is assuming is her parent's bedroom. Instead she finds herself being tugged toward what has got to be the nursery. The walls are a light yellow and the matching furniture is in white and accented with flowery scene. Pierce is sitting in the rocking chair with his red puffy eyes fixed toward the window.

"Pierce, we have an appointment to make."

"You go." He aches out as his tears spill down again across the stubble he hasn't taken the time to shave.

"I need you to come with me." She drops her voice before adding, "She would want you there."

"I don't care, I can't. I can't." He tears his eyes from the window and finally meets Addison's gaze. "Go, please go."

"I'm not leaving without you. So let's go get you changed and then on the way back we will stop and pick up your other daughter. They said she could be released today."

"Daddy?" She asks as she tiptoes cautiously in front of him and places her small hands on his knees. She doesn't get an answer and Addison knows that it has got to hurt everywhere for him to even look at her. "Will you braid my hair like Mommy? For school, I need braided."

"You need it braided." He corrects without even thinking and then he stops because he doesn't have any idea what she is talking about.

"Ellie, come here sweetheart. I can braid." Addison says as she carefully takes a seat on the floor and pats her lap. She is actually only hoping she can braid because it has been years but anything has got to be better than the rats nest that this kid has her hair in presently.

"Oh wait, why don't you go get a brush, I will talk to daddy, and then we will do your hair, ok?" The small child grins and nods and Addison only wishes that she could move on as quickly. Down in the depths of her soul she knows that this will be something that haunts Elianna for the rest of her life but right now she would trade everything to be able to smile like that. She walks quietly out of the room grasping at the hem of her skirt and heads down the hall.

"Ok, Pierce here is the deal and right now I couldn't care less if you like it or not. This is what we are doing."

He turns his head at the sound of her voice and instruction is apparently the one thing he responds well to. Addison can't imagine her sister handling him in any other way and if she has to sink to that level she will. "You are going to go throw on some clothes while I braid Ellie's hair and find her matching clothes. Then we will drop her off at school, when is that?"

"It's already over. She missed school today." He shakes his head as he fingers his chin. "I'm a bad parent."

"Hey, no you aren't. So we'll keep her with us, she seems easy to manage and then we will swing by the hospital and I will come back here and help you get situated with…did you have a name picked out?"

"Yeah." He says as he turns away again.

"What is her name?"

"Rea-…" He stops abruptly at the use of her name and starts over, "Reagan wanted to name her after you. We had this thing. Ellie is named after my mom and my aunt. She said that she didn't much care for her mother or her name so she wanted to name her after you and her dad." He pauses for a moment. "You were her world for a long time."

Addison sucks back the tears and remarks, "Oh." The last thing he needs is someone else breaking down around him when he is barely holding on by a string. She thinks that he at least deserves the best shot that she can give him.

"We…I don't have to. Nothing is on the birth certificate right now. I'll think of something else."

Addison can't stop herself before she blurts out, "No!" She stops and tries to compose herself before continuing. "I mean, if she wanted that then, we should do that. That's a lot of last names." She remarks before pushing herself back up against the white crib for support.

"Kennedy Addison Montgomery-Vechio. Yeah, last names." He says as he drifts back into space.

The affection for presidential surnames as first names stemmed from her father and she had thought growing up with Addison was bad enough until Reagan came along and then she didn't have much to complain about. She thinks it is funny how Reagan managed to preserve all of the traditions and roll them into one name. She was just that kind of person. Her father, Ken, would have really gotten a kick out of it but that just bubbles up more memories she would prefer to keep to herself. Instead, she focuses her attention on the sad sack of man in front of her until Ellie comes bounding back in the room with a brush.

The rest of the afternoon goes about as well as anyone can hope for it to. The good news was Kennedy was ready to be released and sustained no injuries in the crash. The bad news was her father couldn't have cared less that she was alive; that's a rough way to get a jump on life. After helping Pierce out with a few things Addison hops back into her car to retreat in the silence of her home and the crashing waves of the beach.

**_-----_**

"This is ridiculous." Pete adds as he meanders around Sam's house later that night.

"We are having a meeting. It's not my fault you can't keep you eyes off the house next door." Naomi retorts.

Violet strolls around the living room actively avoiding the awkward conversations about Addison. She isn't her friend, well she could be but she isn't yet and this feels borderline wrong. As a doctor she is interested but as a potential friend she feels like she is overstepping her boundaries.

As Cooper peaks through the window he states the obvious, "She has all the blinds closed. What are we supposed to get accomplished?"

"Perhaps our meeting." Sam suggests.

"Yeah. Spill it Naomi. Why in the world would you bring in two surgeons? Are we shifting focus, changing gears in the clinic or something? Because I really enjoy what we have going on-"

Naomi cuts Violet off, "We needed a change. We all needed some change, okay? Mark is good. Actually he is great so Pete you need to leave him alone. I don't care what beef you have with him about Addison. She isn't yours and she isn't his so that needs to stay out of the office. Sam you'll live, you already know him and Cooper I have a feeling you two will get along way too well."

"What about me?" Violet asks while huffing down the rest of her wine.

"You, just don't fall into bed with him. That's my only suggestion which is only further improved by our-"

"No consorting rule." Sam finishes as he glares at Pete.

"What? I didn't do anything." He replies. They all turn their gaze back toward the window hoping for some change.

"You think she is going to be okay?" Cooper asks.

"Yeah." Sam replies unsure of why.

"She's a fighter." Naomi remarks setting down her glass and joining the group.

"I think we should have a sleep over at-"

Sam cuts off Coopers line of dialogue with, "Don't you finish that."

Violet grins as she picks up on the theme. "A sleepover at Dad's."

"Yeah, just to watch her. You know, take shifts. Just in case." He finishes as he smiles at Violet.

"Actually," Naomi pipes in. "That's not a bad idea. At least this way we are all close."

"Whoa, whoa. Hang on a second. All of you…" Sam points at the group, "…are not staying here. That's insane. I'll watch her by myself. Go home, get out of my house."

"I think it was already decided man." Pete remarks. "But I'll go, if no one has any objections." They all shake their heads and he makes his way to the door. He still finds it hard to be sympathetic even years after his wife's death and they all understand this is a little too close for comfort.

**_-----_**

Addison quickly settled herself clad in warm pajamas on the chair in her living room. God what she would give for a nice glass of wine after a day like this; a week like this. Instead she pulls her reading glasses on and attempts to catch up on the happenings of the neonatal world as her mind spins carelessly. After reading the same sentence about twenty times she resigns and sets the journal on the coffee table in front of her. She basks in the warm breeze blowing in the window to her right and the sound of the waves hitting the beach.

Her thoughts wash over her repeatedly. She spends a great deal of time thinking of which problem to fret upon. Derek's baby or the absence of a sister. She chooses the baby as her stomach twists into a knot reminding her of the entire situation. She ponders calling him and silently reaches for her cell but this isn't the kind of news you tell someone over the phone so instead she tries to debate on whether or not keeping this child is a good choice.

Slowly she comes to the realization that terminating this baby isn't an option. This is her last chance to have a kid regardless of whether it was Derek's or the physicist guy's. She wonders how long she can continue thinking of Derek as a merely a sperm donor instead of her ex-husband. They were supposed to have children. They were supposed to stay married and in love so that they could raise a family. That was her dream, not this. Definitely not this. The tears begin to prick her eyes and she curses the seventh week of pregnancy.

She wipes at the corner of her raw eyelids refusing to cry anymore. She takes a deep but shaky breath when she hears the doorbell. The last thing she feels like is visitors but she also forgot to call Naomi earlier so she is going to have to open the door. She pads to the door managing to stub her toe on the corner and cursing sufficiently enough that she is out of breath when she pulls open the door while still looking down at her big toe.

The first thing she hears are the screams. The first thing she sees is a flash of red.

"I can't do this." Pierce says he drops Kennedy into Addison's arms.

"Wait, what?" She begins in as she instinctively rocks back and forth to calm the squirming infant.

"I can't. She hasn't…she won't stop crying, and I can't." Then he breaks again and his words come out jumbled and leave his grappling for air. "I can't….not without her, and no… she won't stop…I need her, god I need her to come back. Someone….just let me wake up now…I'm done with…this dream. God, give me my wife…back." He gasps in again as he drops a suitcase at Addison's feet.

"Daddy?" Ellie starts as she tugs down on his sleeve.

"Yeah baby?" He says as he tries to clench his jaw.

"She stopped." Elianna points toward her sister who Addison has managed to calm down and get to sleep through his stumbling jargon of a speech.

"She stopped." He repeats. "I can't do this, she has been crying ever since you left and I did everything. I did everything!" He yells at his new daughter.

"Don't yell. Look she is fine, this whole thing is a little traumatic for both of you but you need each other. Here take her back and then just put her to bed and start fresh in the morning. That's all you can do Pierce, is start fresh." She ignores the fact that she can never take to heart her own advice and hands him back his daughter.

He refuses sidestepping her and dragging Ellie into the house with him. "No. Just take her. I can't right now."

"I have a job and I have a life. Taking an infant isn't on my list of things to do but I promise to be there with you. I will help you. We can get through this together." Addison offers as she cuddles the baby back into her shoulder and begins swaying back and forth.

"No, no." He crouches down and gets face to face with his daughter before saying, "Ellie I want you to be on your best behavior with Aunt Addison ok? I will see you soon." He hugs her tightly and straightens her sweater before standing and heading for the door.

"Whoa, wait a second there Siegfried. You can not just drop kids and disappear on me. That isn't how this works. These are your daughters, your responsibility." She pauses briefly taking in his disheveled appearance. She laughs at herself for thinking that this couple was perfect as the man before her crumbles into a million pieces.

"I can't. I wish I could explain…I can't. Addison please help me. I can't look at them. I look at them and I see her and my heart…" He stops shaking the tears away. "I know enough to know that they shouldn't be in my care right now. They deserve a better person than I can be in this moment."

She gives in switching Kennedy onto her other shoulder before approaching him. "Ok, how about this. I will take them for the week and then it is all you. But, I'll be there. I'm your back up."

"I don't know. I'll call you. I put some stuff in the suitcase. Ellie knows what to do…and god, I'm so sorry. I never wanted it to be like this."

"Ellie why don't you go see what I have to play with in the living room, ok?" The four year nods and bounces into the next room tripping over the same rug that had Addison stubbing her toe earlier.

"Listen Pierce, I am only going to say this once. You will not abandon your children. They need you, and I know that right now isn't a good time for any of us but we will get through it. Reagan would want her girls with you, she loved you…so much. So take some time and don't do anything stupid. Keep in touch and try to see them as much as you can." She shifts her weight again and finishes with, "One week. I mean it."

He kicks the door with anger that Addison has never seen from him through out their nine year relationship. He beats his fists against the wall and turns around to meet her with the iciest stare she has ever seen from one person's eyes.

"Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what she loved! And don't tell me what to do with my children!" The rage drains and his throats constricts again as she watches him fall to the floor holding his head. "I hate this. I hate them. I can't even look at my kids…. I need to go." He stands again pulling out his car keys and softly shuts the door as Kennedy's voice come screaming back to life. Addison sighs watching the tail lights disappear as she tries to calm her new niece. So much for her night of peaceful thinking and adapting.

**_-----_**

As Mark walks up to her house in the dark he feels something different. He surveys the front door and the yard but everything seems the same. He managed in the last six hours to secure a house down the street and he browsed the lots and online looking for a car but couldn't decide is buying another motorcycle was a good idea. Addison loved his old one but it was hard to show that he was ready to settle down with her if he was riding one of those around town. So he remained unresolved on the issue and took a chance by walking down to her house to check on her again. He spent a great portion of the day trying to reach her but she wasn't picking up any of her phones or answering any pages. He knows why but more over he just wishes that she would let someone in. It hurts him to watch her be this strong and he wants nothing more than to hold her and try to make the world right again.

He rings the doorbell with the odd feeling still in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps tonight wouldn't be the best time to tell her that he had spoken with Derek a few hours ago and invited him down for the service. He was only trying to save her some time on calling everyone and since Derek was part of the family for so long he figured he deserved to know. Needless to say he took it all in in true Derek fashion saving any emotion for a later time.

He hears the shuffling of feet and calls out, "Addison, I know you are home so answer the door." Instead he is greeted by the small red-headed child from the day before and the sounds of a babies cries fill the vacant spot between the door and his body.

"Hi… Oh shit, what's your name again?" He asks of the girl in front of him.

"Elianna."

"Right, Ellie. Ok where is Aunt Addison?" The little girl points toward the kitchen and Mark follows her in to find Addison trying to talk to the screaming infant in her arms while heating up a bottle.

"Addie?"

She turns and smiles exhaustedly. The crying thing was right spot on and it has been non-stop for about the last two hours. "Hey."

"Hey." He replies cautiously. "What do you have going on?"

Instead of answering she turns to Ellie. "Can you please take your stuff upstairs and you know how to count right?"

"I can count to one hundred!" She shouts out startling her sister again.

"Ok, well take the stuff to the third door on the right. You know which side that is."

She raises her right hand in response and replies, "Yup." She scampers from the room as Mark tries to unglue his feet from their place in the kitchen.

"Addison?"

"Huh?" She replies while moving Kennedy again forcing out more sobs from her chest.

"What happened?" He asks.

"Pierce said he couldn't do it and just left them here. With me! Like I know how to do this stuff."

"Pink and squishy is your thing I am sure you are doing great." He quips unintentionally and then shudders as her face drops.

"That's the thing. I should be doing great and instead all she does is cry. I've tried everything too and I know that they cry and she can't adjust without a mother but I can't take the noise anymore. Oh god, here take her for a second I'll be right back." She remarks as the her stomach quells from the smell of the warm formula.

She hands her off swiftly and Mark stands unsure of what to do. He slowly places her up against his chest carefully putting one hand on her head and the other supporting her back. He can't help but feel how small she is against him and he is afraid to move out of fear that he will hurt her. "Okay little baby….this is what they do in the movies. I hope this is right. Hurry up Addison!" He looks down at her as she squints her greenish eyes and lets out a piercing cry. "Well you are still breathing so that's something." He mutters under his breath.

"Sorry." She says when she joins him in the kitchen and suddenly finds herself grinning as he tries to hold her up the best he can.

"What?" He replies.

"It's funny seeing you like that is all."

"Like what?" He questions again slowly taking a step toward her without moving his upper body.

"With a baby. And here hold her like this." She helps situate Kennedy in his arms as she reaches for the bottle on the counter.

"I can't-"

"I really don't want to hear those words anymore tonight. Just please, hold her…for me?" She pleads.

"Yeah, ok." He relents.

"I have a favor to ask." Addison says as he takes a seat at the table and grabs the bottle from her cold hands.

"This isn't good enough for you?" He remarks as he takes another glance down at the blanketed baby in his arms.

"I need to go shopping for…well everything. Can you…will you please come with me so I don't have to be alone?"

"Shopping." He echoes.

"Yeah. Not for me, for them. I don't have anything other than what he left me and it's not much so…please?" She tries with her best smile forward.

**_-----_**

Trying to buy the necessary items with a screaming infant in one arm and an over-tired four girl old latched onto the other proved to be daunting. After gathering a few things they decided that as long as they were clean, dry, and fed the rest could wait.

They fell through the door of Addison's house without conversation or expectations and quickly set Ellie up in one of the guest rooms so that she could get some sleep before school tomorrow. Which lead to a half hour conversation trying to get her to remember what school it was so that they wouldn't have to call her father. Another hour of a blaring wails and finally the youngest of the two was sleeping peacefully in Addison's tired arms. Mark carefully positioned his arm over the back of the couch and when her head was resting on his chest he couldn't help but think that this is the life they could've had if she would have decided to keep their baby.

He quickly decides to dash that thought and begins stroking Addison's hair mindlessly. "Hey Addie?" He murmurs trying to keep his voice down.

"Oh, god. I'm sorry Mark you probably have to go."

"No, I'm not leaving you. This is…this is fine for tonight."

"Ok." She whispers back nuzzling her head into his shoulder more and closing her eyes. She hates moments of weakness but deems this an easy exception to her rule and since it's Mark she quickly falls into a restful slumber.

He watches as she drifts off to sleep and he grins when their breathing patterns start to align and chests are heaving up and down in unison. He has always loved watching her when she sleeps; she has a way of looking so peaceful. Undoing his fingers from her hair he reaches slowly to the blanket next to them and pulls it up so as to not disturb his good sleepers. He feigns the feeling of being a family as he gazes upon the love of his life on his chest and remembers that if he plays his cards right, when everything settles down, that maybe they can have this for once. His wishes and thoughts take him into a place where he can sleep for the first time since she left and he knows from that alone that making the trip to L.A. was worth every second of pain he will inevitably have to endure along the way.

* * *


	13. Wading through this sea of souls

A/N: This chapter was insanely hard for me to etch out for some reason so any feedback would be lovely after this shitty week. Yup, I'm asking for it...do your worst. Thanks to my beta for reading this and putting up with the random chunks of fic I sent her way and thanks to everyone who has been reading and commenting you have no idea how much better you make my day. :)

**_-----_**

**_There are thousands of people as far as the eyes can see  
You can sense the suffering as you draw near  
Standing before them you can see the pain in their eyes  
It breaks the mind and weighs on the heart  
Standing before them you can see the pain in their eyes  
In their eyes now we are wading through this sea of souls  
Mortal Treason, "Dig Your Own Grave"_**

**_-----_**

Despite being kicked out of Addison's house at 2 am when she came to amongst the mess of screams and tangled limbs, Mark still feels like all in all it was a good night as he makes the short trek back to his new house down the street. If anything, he showed her ever so subtly that he could handle whatever direction her life wants to take not that he is really into children but he'd do anything if she asked. He takes in the warm salty breeze and notice a slight bounce in his step. Upon reaching his front door and turning the new shiny silver key in its lock he realizes that he has no furniture. He has literally nothing other than the few suitcases that clutter the entryway.

He deems it a problem for another day as he steps back out into the darkness trying not remember how many times he had to do this back in New York when she needed to be comforted because Derek adamantly refused to come home. He steps rapidly, shoving his hands into his pockets as the wind picks up. On the short return he thinks of how good she looks with children and mentally notes to punch Derek in the face next time he sees him for never making her a mother. It's not like he doesn't have it coming to him anyway.

He tries the door first before knocking because the cries inside have been quieted and the last thing any of them needs is for that to start again before they can squeeze in two hours of sleep. It turns in his hand and he steps into her foyer quietly whispering, "Addie?"

Her eyes flutter and her heart rate picks up substantially as she hears the front door open. She swallows hard and silently wills the Gods that be into thinking she has had enough cruel jokes for one week. Then as she hears her own name from all too familiar lips she allows her shoulders to sink back into the couch. "In here."

He steps into the living room finding the sleeping infant in her carrier on the floor and Addison wrapped in the same blanket he had pulled around them earlier in the evening.  
"Hi."

"Hey." She remarks sarcastically. "What are you doing here again?"

"Well…" He begins and smirks as her eyes drift closed again. "I did something a little crazy today."

"Oh, I'm shocked. You, something crazy… what a surprise." She mutters out from under a pillow.

"I bought a house."

Her eyes flick open again and she sighs as she shifts on the couch to make room for his body. "Congratulations."

"Thanks. It's big."

"I know."

"Ok, well the thing is it's new and I have no furniture yet so-"

She cuts him off as he takes a seat behind her and pulls her into his chest so that her head is resting below his chin. They used to do this in New York frequently and she curbs those thoughts for another time. "I get it. You need to sleep here. Night."

"Thanks." Out of habit he lightly kisses her forehead and settles back into the couch with her already half asleep on him. "Night."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Morning." Pete says as Sam pulls his door open and steps back rubbing his eyes. "I brought coffee to the sleepover crew." He offers the tray of cups to Sam and they head backwards into the maze of sleeping bodies sprawled in couches, chairs, and on the floor.

"Where's Naomi?" Pete asks upon seeing Violet hogging the couch, Cooper uncomfortably curled into a ball in a chair and Dell on the floor. "And when did Dell get here?"

"After you left and Naomi is in my bed. Nice, huh?"

Pete stifles his laughter before remarking. "Oh, you are still so whipped."

"Am not."

"Are too." Violet mutter as she readjusts. "And shut up, we don't have to be at work for three more hours."

Dell jumps to his feet and announces, "I have class. See you guys in a few." He heads toward the door and with the noise signaling that he is gone Cooper states, "That was creepy."

"Kids." Sam retorts setting the coffee on the counter and grabbing a cup.

"So anything new happen on the stake out?" Pete asks as he toes toward a window.

"No." Cooper says as he grumbles and stretches out his confined limbs in pain.

"Waste of my damn time." Sam retorts as Naomi emerges from the bedroom.

"Morning Pete." She heads directly for the coffee before acknowledging anyone else's presence.

"Morning Naomi. Nice hair." He remarks as she self consciously grabs at the ends that are going in every direction. "Well, sorry I missed the fun house last night but I prefer to leave before the group shower scene begins so I will catch all of you later."

"Bye Pete." Violet mutters as she sets a quick path to the steaming liquid on the counter.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Make her stop!" Ellie urges as they convene for breakfast at the table before heading out for the morning.

Addison finds herself short tempered and cranky this morning as she watches Mark enjoy his coffee and she is forced to swallow the nausea and calm the never ending screams that echo from her niece's mouth. "I'm trying." She has been trying for the last hour and curiously wonders if Ellie was exactly this way when she was born. Addison can't remember, she wasn't around all that often but she tries not to think of those things these days either because compiling guilt on top of everything else her life has going on isn't an option.

"All she does is cry." Ellie remarks as she digs her spoon into the cereal that she protested about for ten minutes. Apparently kids aren't in to things that are non-sugar coated.

"She is a baby." Mark quickly cuts in as he senses Addison is about to flip her lid. He is not about to let her fight with a four year old no matter how tired she is.

"Well, I don't like her." Ellie continues.

"Elianna don't talk about your sister that way." Addison warns as she switches the baby onto her right shoulder and tries bouncing up and down slightly. She cringes inwardly at the motherly things leaving her mouth about seven months before they should ever have to.

Ellie hops down from her chair and dumps the remainder of her cereal into he sink before adding, "Mommy says it is bad to lie."

Addison notes that she is happy for the skills she managed to acquire that involve cleaning up after herself even if she has her sister's ever present attitude problem. Like mother, like daughter. "You will. Give her time. Go get your things because I have no idea where we are going and we are guaranteed to be late." She bounds from the room quick to make her adjustments in life which leaves Addison only wishing that she could adapt like the small girl in front of her.

**_-----_**

"Well that was fun." Mark says while dragging himself from Addison's car later that morning. Fortunately they didn't get ridiculously lost and still managed to make it to work on time. They discovered that Kennedy hates car rides and last night's adventure into hell was not an isolated incident.

"I haven't had fun recently, but I can assure you that that was not what it was supposed to be like."

Mark quickly circles around to the back of her car and grabs the extra bags and various other things that were thrown into the trunk before their outing this morning. "You really think you will need all this crap?" He mentions as he begins heading toward the door feeling nothing short of bogged down.

"I have no idea. I'm so tired I don't even know how we got here." She remarks as she shifts the carrier in her aching arms.

"You were driving so I'll ask you not to repeat that again in my presence. Reminds me of our internship." He smiles as they step onto the elevator.

"Worse. This is worse." She remarks as her stomach lurches forward with the elevator when it begins its accent.

"You don't look so good, Add. You feel okay?" Suddenly he feels the doctor in his head nagging at him to probe farther and find out the real problem.

"Oh, I'm great. Everything is just fan-freakin-tastic." She says as she steps unsteadily on her wavering heels out into the lobby taking in her surroundings.

"Addison!" Naomi shrieks as she makes her way toward the couple.

The rest of the practice follows suit and eventually they all make their way into the conference room for the morning meeting. "So, you are a baby stealer now too?" Pete asks as he steps into the room.

"This is Kennedy, Addison's niece." Violet states in a tone that says not to push the issue any further.

"Oh." He replies shifting his feet until he is across the table from the rest of the group that is "oohing" and "aahing" toward the sleeping infant. Instead he moves his mistake into sarcasm and replies, "Nice purse Mark."

Mark shrugs the diaper bag onto the table before smirking. "You think? Addison gave it to me this morning after we spent last night-"

"Enough. Stop it." Naomi says as she shakes her head in disapproval. "What cases do we have today?"

They all take their seats and discuss the days agenda while Mark smiles at Addison who couldn't be paying less attention. Pete spends his time glaring at the man who is quickly getting something he didn't even know he wanted. Sam feigns the feeling of being completely worn out by the six year olds that they seem to have invited to their practice and Violet watches the whole scene unfolds. She enjoys the group tension and the dynamics taking place between the exes as they watch Addison with her new addition. Violet can't help but remember a simpler time when Sam and Naomi were married and personal lives could take a quasi back seat to medicine.

**_-----_**

"All I am saying is that she has turned the practice into three ringed circus." Violet tells Cooper later that afternoon in her office.

"The baby is cute."

"You would say that. Oh, fine she's cute."

"Now there is the nice Violet I know. Why does she have you all bent out of shape for anyway?" Cooper asks as he rests his head on the couch.

"She doesn't have me bent out of shape. Just having an infant here is distracting."

"It's medicine Violet, everything in this field is distracting. Oh, I got it!?" He exclaims.

"What?" She rolls her eyes at his sudden epiphany.

"You are afraid that you aren't Naomi's favorite anymore."

"That's stupid and just like you Cooper. This is not some rivalry thing. I was never Naomi's favorite."

"Ah, but you have been since the divorce." He stands patting her shoulder. "She isn't your replacement."

"I know that!" She yells as he makes his way from her office to his next patient.

**_-----_**

"Go home." Naomi demands as she steps into Addison's office later that morning. She carefully toes around the chairs and plops down into the one on the right peering at her exhausted friend who has her face against the stack of files on her desk.

"I'm fine."

"Clearly. Get up. Get Kennedy, pick up Ellie and go home. Rest. Deal. Cope."

"I am coping." Addison remarks angrily as she lifts her heavy head from the desk. Her rushed ponytail now resembles bed head as she pushes the stray strands out of her face.

"No you aren't. I know you, this is a good show and all but we would appreciate if we could move on and get back to normal Addison mode. Well, as normal as you get." She shrugs.

Addison's eyes lock with her friends in full fledged hatred as she replies, "Don't tell me how to do this. You do not get to tell me how to deal with this situation. You are out of line so get out of my office so I can sleep while she sleeps until my next patient." She motions to the snoozing infant next to her and then places her exhausted head back against the pillow of paperwork.

"I am not out of line and I am going to take that in stride because I know you are hurting. Please go home. I am begging you to just take a few days to adjust to everything that happened and then you can come in and boss everyone around and tell us about how you are so much better than we are because you save lives and we stand around and drink endless pots of coffee."

She feels her eyes fill involuntarily with liquid and she takes a deep breath before responding to her friend's off the wall comment. "I would never say that to you." The fact of the matter is that all of those things are true but Addison would, indeed, never say them. She switches her tone to one of begging, "Please leave me alone."

"Fine. Will you at least agree to talk to Violet?"

"No. She hates me, they all hate me, and she is a co-worker. I am not divulging my personal life with co-workers anymore."

"Oh then explain why Mark was at your house last night."

"None of your business. He is my friend and he knows how to help me which is more than I can say for you sleeping over at Sam's last night to spy instead of coming over."

"How did you-" She stops her sentence mid-point as she watches Addison's eyelids close again and a deep breath is ached out of her lungs. She stands deciding to save the fight for another time and heads for the door.

Addison watches with heavy eyes as her friend retreats from their almost fight. One thing she came down here to change was how she interacted with those around her. She refuses to become the clinic case study.

She awakens to the sound of her door clicking closed and her eyes focus on Charlotte King approaching her with a thick file. "I just thought you might want this. You left the hospital suddenly the other day and…here" She remarks as she shifts uncomfortably.

Addison's breath hitches as she traces her fingers over her sister's name on the file before adding a quiet, "Thank you."

"I'm sorry about what happened." Charlotte offers before she hastily makes her exit and Addison decides that sleep is no longer possible. She opens the file and reads every note, every punctuation, and every scribble searching for some sort of answer in the gibberish.

_-----_

Five days later Addison stood adjusting the tie on the back of her short black dress. She felt her toes pinched in the end of her matching three inch heels. She had called everyone, set up everything, and reviewed so many papers she thought her eyes were going to fall out of their socket. She stared into the mirror and took in the sad eyes staring back at her. She hasn't cried yet. There have been times, during check ups or the nights when Kennedy refuses to be calmed that she would really like nothing more than to let it all out but now isn't the time for those kind of antics. It is never the time. Elianna and Kennedy have kept her dancing in circles and she is beginning to regret taking them and refusing all forms of help that have been offered. She needs a night off.

Children that are about a week old shouldn't have to attend a funeral. They shouldn't be forced into a situation that impacts them more than they can possibly conceive at that stage of life when days are full of screaming, eating, and sleeping. Addison managed to find one solid black outfit, because apparently people like bright colors for baby girls, and it has yet to be dirtied so she figures that today can't be all that bad. She has resigned herself to thinking that she may actually never hear from Pierce on when he plans on picking his girls up and ponders the thought of decorating rooms for them. At least that would be a good distraction. Not like she couldn't use a nursery.

"Ready!" Ellie announces as she bounds into the room more excited than any one person should be about this funeral.

"Don't yell, please. Your sister is sleeping and we all know how rare that is." Addison unintentionally snaps.

Elianna's eyes fill with tears as she mutters a, "Sorry" under her breath and turns away so her Aunt can't see her crying. She doesn't have a sense of self-consciousness yet but she simply isn't all that familiar with how she will react and it is better safe than sorry.

Addison watches as the tears trickle out of her eyes and down her face before she reaches for her hand pulling her into a hug. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you, I'm just a little tired."

Ellie sniffles into Addison's bare shoulder before pulling back and asking, "This is for Mommy?"

Addison readjusts herself on her heels and looks the child square in her green eyes. "Yes."

"I miss Daddy." She says as she watches her strong aunt's face crack ever so slightly.

"Me too." Addison notes as she pulls her closer again. This time the hug is for herself and she feels her niece wrap her arms around her and squeeze as tight as she can. That's all it takes for Addison to lose it. Not the support of her friends, not the bleak future of her own child that she is carrying, not the fact that her world has been thrown into the dryer and set to tumble. The tiny arms that reach around her back and instinctively rub up and down throw her over the edge and she is sobbing within three seconds.

"Aunt Addie?" Ellie asks as she begins to feel her Aunt heave against her.

"Yeah?"

"Your heart hurts." She responds plainly.

"What?" She asks pulling back and trying to wipe the tears off her recently made up face.

"Mommy is with the angels and your heart hurts."

"Yeah." The terminology is simple and true that she loses it again, this time bringing her hands to her face as Ellie sits cautiously next to her before climbing into her lap.

"It's ok." Ellie urges as her sister erupts from her place in the basinet next to the bed.

All Addison can manage to shout out before moving toward Kennedy is, "You are too young for this. Too young to have to do this."

**_-----_**

"We are today to say goodbye to an incredible woman, Reagan Vechio. Though time has taken her much too soon from us all we must remember that…"

The speech drones on in front of Addison who can't pay attention. She silently gives thanks for letting Kennedy be asleep in the overcast rays of the day and that Pierce managed to pull it together enough to take Ellie for awhile. Standing straight with her shoulders back actually tends to be quite a feat for her exhausted body so she shuffles closer to Mark next to her in case she looses her balance. She picks out words from the outdoor service as they stand in a circle around the hole in the ground. A graveside ceremony was not Addison's pick but it was what Reagan would have wanted so there stood about one hundred of her closes friends and family in support and shock of her departure from the cruel world.

"… A loved one that has finished their trek of life on this earth is not dead forever, their life has merely begun in a place we can not see. They are still with us in spirit…"

She shuffles her heels into the mushy grass as she feels the tears take over again and she glances at Pierce who can not contain himself so he has taken to staring at the mound of dirt directly across from him. Her eyes wander aimlessly trying her best not to focus on the actual words of the service so she can remain as lady like as possible in her demeanor. She watches a few friends assemble themselves around the priest to offer their semblance of help in the mourning.  
_  
_

_"Death is nothing at all,_  
_I have only slipped into the next room_  
_I am I and you are you_  
_Whatever we were to each other, that we are still._  
_Call me by my old familiar name,_  
_Speak to me in the easy way which you always used_  
_Put no difference in your tone,_  
_Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow_  
_Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together._  
_Play, smile, think of me, pray for me._  
_Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,_  
_Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it._  
_Life means all that it ever meant._  
_It the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity._  
_Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?_  
_I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,_  
_Just around the corner._  
_All is well."_

They finish in a round of sobs an shrieks as Addison silently curses the heavens for letting anyone and everyone talk through this thing. She feels her back aching and her feet distend within her heels as her eyes catch a familiar sight in the back of the crowd.

His waves are unmistakenable and his blue eyes seem to lock with hers as he offers a sheepish grin. Derek. She looks at Mark next to her and opens her mouth to ask when, "We would like to ask Reagan's sister Addison to say a few words on behalf of the family." She begrudgingly makes her way to center of the group and recites a few lines she jotted down while thanking everyone for coming out and for their continued support. She feels his eyes burning a hole in the back of her skull and she is bound and determined to find out what drug the lovely Derek Shepherd all the way out from rainy Seattle.

-----

After the majority of the group has passed and people have made their peace Addison stands alone leaning against a tree as they lower the casket into the ground. She transfers her ascending weight uncomfortably from throbbing foot to throbbing foot as she takes in the cool air of the afternoon. It's a dreary, designed, and horrible job to have but the workers who have gathered together don't seem to notice what their chosen career is as they share some stupid workplace joke about sexual innuendos.

Her eyes are reluctantly locked onto the scene in front of her. What she would give to be able to walk away and hop in the car with Mark so that they could beat the crowd to her house where someone decided that a form of a party should occur. She didn't plan on having masses of people in her house until she was informed of such idea by Reagan's mother, her step-mother, who has always had an affection for get-togethers no matter the cause. She has yet to be able to find the time and place to ask Mark about Derek, let alone find Derek in this group. Instead she hopes as she peels herself off the crunchy dry bark of the tree side that he will show up at her house. If worse comes to worse, she can always try calling him.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

After putting Kennedy down for some sort of nap Addison collapses on her bed listening to the sounds of the people mingling downstairs. Pierce managed to hang on to Ellie for the afternoon and promised that he would bring her back after they went to his house and gathered more of her things so that she could be relaxed in her new house. After strenuously objecting Addison resigned when he mentioned something about handing them over to child services until he could care for them. No niece of hers was going to be put in state custody if she could avoid it. And there was no way they were going to either set of dysfunctional grandparents.

"Hey." Mark states as he leans against the door jam watching her drift in and out of sleep.

She sits up quickly, too quickly and then immediately regretting the decision she lays back down. "Hi."

He removes himself from the doorway and makes his way to her bed tossing his shoes off as he goes. "So this is your room."

"Yeah." She mutters.

"It's ah…very you."

"Well, thanks."

He watches her nod off again before lying down next to her taking in her sweet scent. Too afraid to ask the real question in his heart he opts for, "So she quieted down finally?"

Addison turns her head toward Kennedy who is sleeping peacefully for the moment next to them. "For now. I never want to ride in a car with her again."

"So, we are playing hooky tomorrow then?"

"Oh, uh. No. It was more of a wish than a reality."

He watches her turn her head back to him, their faces mere inches apart, and captures her air of utter exhaustion. "You look like you need a nap. Are you okay? I mean, I know you aren't but physically if you are still dealing with that flu thing you should probably get it checked out. You know as a doctor-"

She cuts him off before he puts two and two together and asks, "Why is Derek here? I saw him at the funeral and I didn't invite him."

"I did." He returns as he shifts his head and eyes toward the ceiling waiting for her rapture.

"Oh, ok." She agrees passively.

"You aren't going to yell?"

"No."

"You aren't going to have a freak out moment and scratch me with your sharpened claws?"

"No."

He sighs full of relief and sits back up. "You really aren't mad at me?"

"Not at all. But if you could send him up, I mean… if he shows up. I just, I-…uh would really like to talk to him about-some-something."

"Breathe there tiger and I'll see what I can do. You should sleep, I'm sure no one will mind-"

He is cut off by the five foot nine older woman who magically appeared in the doorway. Addison cringes as she remembers her step-mother's ability to pop in without any form of notice. Judith Montgomery was an overbearing and at times overpowering person to tolerate. It was a daily struggle to not anger the older alcoholic woman in front of her and Addison was happy for the day that college presented itself as an escape.

"Your presence is required downstairs. You shouldn't have men in your bedroom Addison, it isn't appropriate." She states as she waves her gin in the air.

"It's Mark. You remember Mark?" She asks as she sits up and wedges her feet back into her heels.

"Unfortunately. How are you these days Dr. Sloan?"

"Great…just great." Mark mutters as Addison stands reluctantly and looks expectantly.  
"I'll watch her I guess." He shrugs and flops back down on the bed praying that she doesn't wake up hungry or wet. Those are not fields he is trained in handling yet.

"Thanks." Addison adds as she ushered from the room by her step-mother.

**_-----_**

After milling through the people and their apologies Addison finds her way to the back porch. She quickly toes out of her heels and rushes to sink her feet in the sand. She plunges from the last step drinking in the feeling of the warm grains against her tired skin. What she needs most in this moment is to be left alone with her thoughts but as the house begins to brim with humans she finds that this is the next best thing.

There are things that one can not do while grieving. It tends gray out certain areas as where other become very cut and dry. Choices that used to be made based on decisions after careful thought are now things that she can't bear to do. Trying to deal with the influx of people in her own home, invading her personal space, sorting through the things that have become her life is not something that she can manage right now. So she opts for this kind of an out. Judith will find her within the next five minutes, of that she is certain, so she collapses onto a deck chair and watches the waves hoping for some sort of serenity.

She thinks it is funny how death changes things. She kicks at the sand below her feet and remarks on how ridiculous it is that the deceased automatically become heroines and gods. How in passing everyone's bad deeds are forgotten. If life was that easy then she was wasting a hell of a lot of time pleasing trivial people and their issues. While, rest assured, she wants nothing but the best for her sister in passing she can't help but be reminded of all of their previous indiscretions and fights that are lounging on the table unresolved. The voice behind her breaks the line of thought she has been struggling to get for over a week. It deep and familiar and she knows as the her breath gets stuck in her throat, nearly choking her, exactly who is behind her.

**_-----_**

"Addison?" It's a question, a statement, a thought, and a sentence in its own right.

She turns to see Derek about to kick of his loafers and join her when she stands and slaps her own hand away from her stomach where it has started to take up a permanent residency. "Derek."

He resorts to meeting her halfway. The two of them standing in the warm sun, dressed in ridiculously formal attire for the beach, and breathing down each other's throat hoping that the discussion doesn't lead where it has to. It reminds him of the their short lived honeymoon. It reminds her of all the times he forgot her in the Hamptons and sent Mark up to fetch her. "I'm….well, I don't want to say it because it was the last thing I ever wanted to hear after my dad…so, I'll just say that I am always here if you need me."

She appreciates his knowledge and expertise in the situation. They have dealt with numerous deaths together but in being apart the rules of the game change and she still enjoys that he knows what she needs and definitely does not need to hear. "Thanks."

"So…uh-how are things out here in California?" He asks cautiously as he steps closer causing her heart rate to increase.

She damns herself for letting him still have this kind of effect, this kind of control over her actions and replies, "I've had better times."

"Yeah. Well, Seattle isn't the same without you around. You could always come back you know." He smiles one of those smiles and for the first time in her life her heart doesn't jump into mouth and dance.

She nods at his sudden acceptance of being in a friendly divorce setting and chalks it up to the death. People will do anything for the mourning. It's the ultimate get out of jail free card but it comes at price.

"How is Pierce?" He quickly asks as he surveys the layout of the beach and the crashing liquid in the distance behind them.

"He…he's bad." She whispers. "He left his kids with me and I gave him one week but he isn't coming back, not yet anyway."

"Oh."

"Addison! What are you doing out here? You have guests, you are the hostess. Get inside and mingle. I can't play the part alone." Judith yells out to them as she shields her eyes from the rays that her skin hasn't seen in years.

"Give me one minute!" She yells back as Derek tosses his head from woman to woman.

"Addison, don't start this now. Just get inside." She stalks back indoors her now color treated black hair swept up by the wind and blown into her face.

"I should go." Addison mutters out as she heads for the porch but instead Derek refuses to move and steps forward embracing her tightly in a hug she most certainly didn't ask for.

"Addie, you are your own person. Don't go if you don't want to. This whole thing…." He drops his voice to a barely audible tone above the waves and whispers into her ear, "You have to do what you want, that's all you can do."

She pulls back suddenly feeling the heat rise between them and reminds herself not to fall into bed with anyone inadvertently no matter how long it's been. "Thank you." She frees herself from his arms and begins her trek back inside.

"I miss you." He aches out and then kicks at the sand with frustration.

She spins around hearing the words she always desired about three years too late and states, "I'm pregnant."

"Oh. Uh…well congratulations." He shoves his hands into his slacks and winces as the sand migrates its way into his right eye. "I'm sure Mark will be an alright Dad… We teased him a lot but he'll be okay, just you know…don't leave him alone with kids or anything or you might find a disaster when you get back."

She walks hastily back to him so she can lower her voice to a level that no one will be able to hear. "It's your's, not Mark's. Your's."

"What!" He screeches as she finally finds a place in front of him.

"When we, before I left, and I…" She runs her hands through her hair freeing it of it's tight clip and tries to finish, "We're having a baby…finally."

**_-----_**

Mark had been cursed early in a life with a case of wrong place, wrong time syndrome. It started when he was seven and got to witness the endless battles between his parents and it ends here. He stands alone holding Kennedy tediously on his chest as he hears her tell his best friend the news. He was pretty sure he heard incorrectly, he wanted to think that he was going deaf from old age but in his heart he knew. The anguish rapidly fills his heart and slowly burns its path through his core until there is nothing but Derek yelling and Addison trying her damnedest not to cry when she finally catches a glimpse of the heartbroken man on her back porch with the wailing infant. If only he was of an appropriate age he would be doing the exact same thing, screaming and sobbing to his heart's contentment. His world just ended and he has the right to be doing something other than standing frozen like an ice sculpture being dropped into the depths of hell.

**_-----_**

A/N #2: I forgot to mention that the cut text in the middle belongs to the amazing Henry Scott Holland.

* * *


	14. Scars that will always be a part of me

A/N: Hello to everyone! At the risk of this running insanely long I cut it off where I did. I am, however, working on the next bit so I should have it up fairly soon. Thanks to everyone who commented last time, it really does help they days go by better. Special thanks to my beta for some of the great lines you will see and for reading and re-reading in her not-so-free time. Hope you all like it!**_  
_**

**_ -----_**  
**_They are leaving now,_**  
**_To the sound of beating wings._**  
**_To images of a scenery,_**  
**_A scenery whose colours,_**  
**_Have started to fade._**  
**_They are leaving now,_**  
**_Just like the easier days left us to die,_**  
**_Just like the loss of you,_**  
**_Left the scars that will always be a part of me. _**  
_- Jeniferever, "The Sound of Beating Wings"_

**_-----_**

"How did this happen!" Derek yells as he kicks the sand that is now annoying his feet. He came out here to support Addison, to be there for her in the off chance she needed him. He came out of obligation to the past and was leaving with the knowledge of a life created. His head spun as his words spit forth venom.

"What do you mean how did this happen? Do you need me to give you a run down of how we had sex that night? You want me to tell you how you ran your fingers up my sides and-"

"Enough." He whispers suddenly aware of the growing crowd on the porch staring back at them.

She turns abruptly faced by the throngs of people and Mark nowhere in sight. "Where is…"

"We'll finish this later." He echoes as he grabs at his shoes, shaking the sand out violently before pushing past her and the rest of the house to his car.

"Later." She mimics before taking a deep breath to compose herself and facing the growing demons behind her. Judith is at the helm of the ship glaring incredulously down at the daughter she raised practically from birth. The only thing she is certain of is that in the last few years Addison has completely forgotten her manners. She takes a few quick steps forward to demand and explanation and an apology but the red-head side steps her and heads directly for the stairs.

**_-----_**

"Mark?" She says as she passes through the hallway peering through open guest room doors. She hasn't seen him or Kennedy in the last twenty minutes and is beginning to worry enough so that she can't focus on anything else.

"Addison?" Comes the voice from the stairs.

She spins around expecting to find Mark clutching a newborn in an awkward position but instead finds Pete climbing the stairs of her home. "Yeah?" She gulps as he comes into plain view. She finds him holding onto Kennedy who is for once sleeping peacefully in someone's arms.

"Uh…I ran into Mark outside, he was pacing and he gave me this." He smiles and gives a little bounce of the arms to make his point clear.

Brushing past him with her mind set she asks, "Is he still out there?"

"I don't think so. He started walking down the driveway when I took her. Speaking of she's pretty great, I have no idea why you all have such a problem calming her down at work."

She grimaces at his dig but accepts it because he can't possibly know what has been happening for the last half of day. "She hates me. That's how I have a problem. Actually she hates everyone, except for you apparently, which is really just the topper to this day. Excuse me." She heads for the stairs wincing as she steps and vowing to take off the damn heels as soon as everyone departs.

**_-----_**

"Well, that was one heck of a party. I never pegged you as that type." Pete mocks as he sways Kennedy from side to side. The "party" continued on into the evening hours before Judith ushered everyone away and removed herself with a promise to call before she left town. Addison is really not looking forward to that call.

"Could you just shut up for one second?" She immediately curses herself and shakes her head, "Sorry…I just can't think. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's ok. Haven't you learned that you can get away with anything right now? If I were you I would go do all the things that you always wanted to try and then blame it on the mourning."

"Why are you always so uncouth?"

He takes a seat next to her on the couch as she pulls her heels off and flings them four feet away effectively hitting the wall and tumbling back a few inches. "I suppose I should apologize. I don't do this very well."

She glances over at him and the still sleeping newborn that irks her to no end and replies, "Really because you seem like a baby guy."

"No, well…yeah I get along with kids. Not like Cooper or anything but I meant the death thing. I don't do that well."

"I don't think anyone does. We aren't mean to handle this well." She answers earnestly as she raises her legs and tucks her feet to the side in the space between bodies. She pulls on the hem of her dress trying, in vain, to keep it past her knees and then gives up.

Pete's eyes unintentionally follow as she swoops her deliciously long legs up next to him and tugs on the edge of her dress that he really wishes he could take off. "I…uh…what were you saying?"

She tracks his eyes with her own and leaves it with a sigh and a head roll. She pauses for a few moments basking in the uncomfortable silence that comes with having a co-worker in your home before adding, "I should call him again."

"You've called like twenty times. If he didn't pick up then, he won't now. Guys aren't like that."

"Maybe-"

"No. Trust me. I may hate the guy but men like Mark…you could call for days before ever hearing anything."

She thinks he is wrong. Mostly because Mark has always been so good at proving that he could handle anything when it came to her but stops when she remembers that this isn't just a simple thing. It is a monstrous disaster. "Right." She stands anyway to break the suffocating silence and kind of wishes the child would rupture into her normal sequence of screams.

"So how about some dinner? You look like you have had your hands full today."

"I'm not really in the mood to go out but thanks for the offer." She says as she paces the hardwood flooring with her bare feet.

"I was offering to cook Addison not to take you out on a date. Helping a friend."

"You aren't my friend….Oh god, I'm sorry. I mean you aren't really my friend. You could be if you want. If you wanted that is we could try to be friends and-"

He cuts her off and smiles as he stands solidly. "You ramble when you are nervous." He moves around to her and taps her nose lightly. "It's cute." He turns around and walks past her into the kitchen after setting Kennedy in her designated location. "I'll be in the kitchen when the color drains from your face and the stone cold exterior reappears."

**_-----_**

"You've hardly touched your dinner." Pete notes as he twirls the pasta on his fork.

"That's what happens when someone tells you they aren't hungry and then you make food and force them to be polite and take a few bites." Addison returns slamming her fork down on the china.

"Oh…well I just figured…I knew I never wanted to eat after…Anna…and I-" He chokes out as she cuts him off.

"No, it's fine. I understand. I get it but I don't need saving. I'm good Pete, I've got this and I swear to you that I can cook."

He smirks as his eyebrows rise, "You cook?"

"Sometimes, well a few things but that's not the point."

"No."

"The point is I can cook for myself and feed myself and I don't need you here babysitting me so whoever paid you, just take their money and I'll vouch that you were here." She adds as she tosses her plate carelessly near the sink causing the pasta to slip into the drain and the fork to clatter around the rim.

"No one paid me to do anything Addison. I'm here because I want to be here, just like he should be but the difference is that he's not…" He pauses as he nears her hoisting her chin with one of his fingers so that they can lock eyes, "…and I am. I am here for you. Whatever you want, whatever you need. I'll do it without hesitation because you deserve that."

"I'm not a charity case." She pulls away deftly heading for the living room.

"God, you are impossible." He notes as he takes a seat on the same couch when she flips on the TV.

"I am not." She returns searching through the channels until she finds her choice and clicks the button the loudest he's ever heard.

He is about to retort when he takes notice of the channel. "You like sports?"

"Yes." It isn't completely true but after years of watching endless Yankee games she sort of takes comfort in the sounds even if neither one of them is there and she is stuck with the quack.

"I never pegged you as sports kinda girl."

"I'm sure you never pegged me as anything outside of the bedroom fantasies you harbor." She turns the volume up hoping to drown out his inevitable reply.

He ignores the comment because he knows she is hurting and doing her best not to show it. "So the Yankees?"

"I'm from New York, well Connecticut, but then New York and yes…the Yankees." She aches out as she grabs a throw pillow and clutches it to her center. Her eyes fill with liquid as she watches the two-two count quickly turn into an out and the Yanks are sent back to the field after an unsuccessful up.

"Hey."

She turns to him, sucking in deeply and blinking rapidly. "What."

"Oh, well you shouldn't cry about the inning, it's…uh...it's only the bottom of the sixth and they are still winning."

She wipes at her eyes refusing to let the tears fall as the doorbell sounds saving her from the pressure filling the room. The ding sends the infant in the corner into a fit and Pete moves for the door as she grabs Kennedy silently praying that Mark has come to save her from this hell. "I got it."

He moves away from the ear splitting sounds to the door, pulling it open to reveal a solemn looking man dressed in a black suit. The tie has been noticeably torn from his collar and there is no doubt in Pete's mind that this man was at the funeral. His green eyes swirl just like the small child that Pete recognizes below him.

"Elianna." Pete smiles extending his hand to shake hers. She shies away hiding behind Pierce's leg as he makes his way through the house. He finds Addison in the kitchen feeding his youngest and can't help but remark over the similarities of his late wife and his sister in law. Pete follows them and clears his throat when no one else speaks up filling the void.

**_-----_**

"What makes you think that I can handle them? What makes you think that you have a right to be hurting more than me?" Addison asks tediously as Pierce joins her in the living room. Ellie is busy brushing her teeth upstairs and Pete took over the feeding so as to allow for this conversation.

"I don't think that it is a competition." He mutters back as he shifts his weight.

Addison softens her expression and her tone trying to remember who she is dealing with here. "Pierce, I know. I know it hurts everywhere but you have to take them back. They need you, you are their father." She recites the same damn speech she gave last time hoping that perhaps he has grabbed a little insight in the last week and will come to his senses.

"No. I know you are right….I know that. I can't." He offers no further explanation or plans detailing when he may return before he heads to the door. She follows him in full blown protest of his actions before he turns facing her. Their eyes are inches apart and for a moment he wants to close his lids and picture his wife but he stutters out a, "Thank you." before swallowing deeply and making his exit.

He pulls the door open as Addison stands stricken behind him and watches as he gets into his car and begins to pull away. She catches another pair of headlights headed down her driveway, hoping once again that her knight has come back for her. She is beginning to feel the stress mounting and even the slightest crack at this point could send her tumbling over the edge.

**_-----_**

"And then this one time Mommy and I went to the zoo and there was all these-"

"There were all these." Pete corrects out of habit as the bouncing four year old tells him the most ridiculously long story ever invented. Her light purple pajamas sway as she dances around the kitchen recounting a better time with her mother.

"Elianna, it is time for bed. Tell Dr. Wilder goodnight." Addison pipes up as she reenters the room with a man Pete has never seen before.

"Night Wild." She echoes as she follows the older woman from the room.

"So…" Derek manages as he watches the other man burp the infant on his shoulder.

"Oh, right." Pete frees up a hand and offers it out. "Sorry, Dr. Wilder…Pete, just call me Pete."

"Ok…you can call me Derek." He notes as his eyes refuse to stop looking at what he will have in a few short months with his ex-wife.

"So what line of work are you in?" Pete asks as he removes the blanket from his shoulder and shifts Kennedy into a more comfortable position.

"Neurology. I'm a surgeon." He braves the waters and just goes ahead and asks it. "How do you know Addison?"

"We work together at the clinic. Naomi and Sam's clinic in Santa Monica….how do you know her?" He asks as he sizes the man up. He is also dressed solidly in black but there is something about the air he is carrying with him. He was either very close to the deceased or is having the worst day imaginable.

"I'm her husband." He laughs briefly. "Sorry, ex-husband. Ex. Definitely exes we are." He mumbles on.

"I didn't know she was married. How long?" He probes the surface because something about this woman simply fascinates him.

"11 years."

"That's a long time." Pete nods.

"Yeah it was. Is she…I mean how long does this putting to bed thing take?"

"I'm not sure. My first night here." Pete smiles as he watches Kennedy drift off the sleep.

"Mine too."

"She has the game on in the other room and some beer in the fridge if you are interested." Pete adds as he moves from the room.

"Ok." Derek mindlessly follows the hippie looking man towards the noise in the other room. He takes a seat on the couch trying not to miss the feeling of the nights when he had Addison cuddled against his chest watching this very thing. He meant it when he said he missed her but her retort shook his world.

**_-----_**

"So what did you do with Daddy today?" Addison asks as she watches Ellie climb into the bed next to her.

"We went home and he sat a lot." She says as she wiggles below the covers reaching for the book next to her.

Addison takes a seat on the edge of the bed watching her open her book. "Did he say anything to you?"

"He said sorry 'cause I have to stay here." She shrugs as she flips the page.

"Did he tell you why you have to stay here?" Addison pushes farther causing the little girl to put her book down and try and find her Aunt's eyes.

"No." She picks her book back up and places her finger over the few words on the page reading silently as her lips move with comprehension.

"Oh, ok. Well do you…I mean I can read that to you so you don't have to stare at the pictures."

"I can read." She announces suddenly proud of herself and rest assured for a least a small second in the day.

"Well aren't you smart. Why don't you read to me then?" Addison asks as she pushes her way over the bed so she is sitting next to the girl. She finds that escaping into Ellie's little dream world is easier than the life facing her downstairs so she takes advantage of the moment.

"Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?" Ellie repeats as Addison sighs. It's one of those books and while the thrill of reading about white dogs, redbirds, black sheep and goldfish are way behind her she can still appreciate that Elianna knows the words, she was probably reading this a year ago, and breezes through the book without stuttering until, "I see a mother looking at me." Addison quickly gasps enough for both of them and Ellie closes the book and tosses it onto the floor.

"Elianna…" Addison starts as the younger girl folds her arms and places them against her chest huffing.

"What." She answers defiantly. "I'm sorry I throwed the book."

"Threw and I'm not mad about the book." Addison remarks as she scoots down the bed to grab it.

"Threw." Ellie rolls her eyes in a fashion way above her years and Addison attributes it to a fine upbringing by her sister.

"Why did you throw the book?"

"It's stupid." Is her quick reply.

"Try again. You seemed to be enjoying it until the end."

"Daddy says I don't get a mother anymore. It's stupid." She affirms working her way so that her head is under the covers. She instinctively places her thumb in her mouth, a habit she was never big on to begin with, but it feels like home.

Addison pulls the covers back to find her curled into a ball. She pulls the child into her lap removing her digit and stroking her hair. "You still have a Daddy and a sister and an Aunt Addison."

"You aren't Mommy." She chokes out as she begins to cry and Addison is dead certain that she will hear those words quite a few more times before she gets to send these girls home.

This time it is for Ellie. She needs the hug, the encouragement that the days get better even though it may not seem that way now. Telling her that life just plain sucks most of the time isn't very uplifting no matter how true so Addison settles for, "No, I'm Aunt Addison. Which is kind of hard to say. You can call me Addie. How's that? You can call me a special name. No one else in your class has an Addie I bet."

"Yeah." Ellie acknowledges as she looks up. She wipes her tears with her sleeve and cuddles back into the her Aunt's chest listening to the heaving and beating that are sure signs of life that she used to take for granted.

**_-----_**

Addison waits until she drifts off to sleep before pushing her back under the covers and leaving the room in the glow of the purple butterfly night light in the corner. She makes a mental note to do some sort of shopping so that Ellie can feel more comfortable as she heads down the stairs. She halts at the last step catching her breath as she watches Derek playing with Kennedy as he and Pete share a beer. She hadn't realized that she was gone long enough for people to make themselves at ease in her home and become best friends. She clears her throat entering the room amidst their banter about the game.

"Pete you can go." She offers as she waves toward the door.

"Alright." He offers his hand to Derek again. "Take care man, it was good talking to you."

"Likewise." Derek notes as he carefully holds onto Kennedy with one hand. Pete makes a slow exit promising to catch up with Addison at work and to grab Derek's number so they can go out if he is ever in town again. Addison on the other hand finds it oddly fitting that they get along so well and the fact that Kennedy appears to have no problem with Derek either sends her over the edge.

Taking the now sleeping, blanket bound child from Derek's warm arms she asks, "What do you want?"

"We need to talk. I said later and here I am."

"Yes, Derek you always say later and then later never comes so forgive my surprise at your presence." She carefully places Kennedy next to her as she takes a seat opposite the man who had nothing but hate filled words for her earlier.

"Sorry."

"Too late for apologies. Look, I'm exhausted and the girls are already asleep so why don't you save me the big long drawn out melodramatics and we can continue this tomorrow after I get off."

"Fine." He retorts angrily relinquishing the power of the situation to her. He takes in her appearance. The clip from her hair is probably still out in the sand and she has her feet resting up on the coffee table in front of her. Her head is back against the couch and her eyes remain half drawn. He slaps himself for not being more considerate and getting caught up in the matter of the day. "I mean yeah, okay. That sounds good. What time?"

"Let's say seven. You can come for dinner."

"And by come for dinner you mean bring dinner so that we have something to eat?"

"Yes." She lets out a small smile because he still knows her too well.

"Okay then." He readjusts himself on the opposing couch so that he is lying with his feet teetering over the edge.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping."

"In my house?"

"Well, yeah. You can't put up your poor ex-husband for the night?" He smirks as her frustration mounts.

She grumbles as she makes it to her feet and throws a blanket in his direction. It hits him square across the face and she laughs as she bends down to get Kennedy. "I have a spare room upstairs."

"I'm fine here." He mutters as his long drawn out breaths become more frequent and his eyes slam shut.

Addison trudges up the stairs, infant in hand; to take her place in the bed she never finds rest in. She sits pensively on the edge after shedding her dress. She toys with the edge of her slip and stops the tears from falling. When she hears Kennedy stirring she instinctively freezes hoping that she will just go back to sleep.

**_-----_**

After seven torturous hours of tossing and turning Addison gives up on the idea of sleeping again and resigns herself to a quick shower before heading downstairs. Upon her arrival, infant in hand, she finds Derek reading her newspaper, drinking her coffee, at her kitchen counter.

"Morning." He hums taking a second to look up from _The Times_. She still orders it because she's a little addicted to the Sunday crosswords and it is a comfort thing, apparently for him as well.

"Hi."

He returns to his coffee and cereal routine eerily resembling their many years together and she focuses on not trying to kill an over active four year old, feeding a child who hates her, feigning insecure jealousy over the smells of coffee, and curing morning sickness with the saltines that have become her best friend.

After promising to read some book about dogs going tonight with Ellie she finally gets her in the classroom door and makes her way to work. She arrives to find Derek already seated in the conference room for their morning meeting happily gabbing away with Sam like they never stopped being friends. She turns to Naomi who is on her left flirting with Dell and asks, "What the hell is that about?"

"Better question, what the hell is that about?" She asks as motions to Kennedy. "You said it was one week."

"Well, it wasn't. What is he doing here? I can't have him here. I have to work."

"Or for a change maybe you could take the day off and take him with you. I heard about the blow out. Sorry I missed the party. Maya had a recital."

"It wasn't…" Addison starts and then is cut short by her friend's raising brows, "…oh fine. It was a full blown screaming match out by the sea, happy?"

"As soon as you remove him. I think Violet is going to piss herself when she realizes the guy she has been flirting with all morning is one of your other exes."

"You say it like I have a hundred exes. I have like eight or something." She gestures widely and then gives up on actually trying to tally the number.

"Maybe we should tell her for fun. See what she does." Naomi offers as she takes another peek into the room.

"You're pure evil this morning. What did you eat for breakfast, World Domination O's?"

"I'm not half as bad as you are. Mark came by this morning to inform me he needs some personal leave. You should have told him Addison."

"How exactly does one spur that conversation Naomi, please enlighten me. Should it go a little something like, 'Hey so it's been really great hanging out with you but you should know this one time when I thought it was no longer in the realm of a possibility for me to even have children I had accidental goodbye sex with my ex-husband, you know the one I cheated on with you, yeah that one, your ex-bestfriend. Oh, and by the way he has magical sperm that impregnated me, and because this is like a one in a million chance I'm keeping it, unlike when you managed to knock me up. Thanks for helping me out these last few days though, that's been really great.' How was that? Do you think that will do the trick?"

Naomi exhales deeply trying to take all the little knocks in stride. Normally, no one has the right to treat her this way but it's good ol' Addie and as everyone knows she can get away with anything. "I don't know Addison but something should have transpired. He looks like you kicked his puppy, better yet drowned it or skinned it and then gave it to him."

"You are taking his side?"

"What I'm doing is telling you to calm the raging hormones and find him. Talk to them all. Get a game plan before you fall apart. I need you-"

"To bill hours, I know." She rolls her eyes for added effect.

"Let me finish one thing today, god. I may have to slap you within the course of the next few months. I need you around to help me. I know it sounds selfish but I miss you and all your man problems interfere with our friendship."

"Oh, Nae-"

"Don't start with the mushy crap just get it together so we can hang out. I do know how to baby-sit…or better yet Maya could do it."

"Fat chance. This one-" She points to the carrier next to her navy heels, "hates everyone. Except Pete. Isn't that great?"

"I don't even want to know how you know that." She scoops her pile of charts from the counter top and motions to the door, "Shall we go have our disastrously awkward meeting of the day?"

"After you."

**_-----_**

"What happened?" Addison asks as she rushes into the principle's office. One any other day she probably would have reverted to her inside awkwardly geek of a self but today is not the day for that persona. She catches the eyes of Elianna who sits in the corner in the chair crying softly as the headmaster or whoever he is stands to greet her.

"Hello, I'm headmaster Charles Franklin; I take it you are her "Addie"?" He stands, a stout man, and pushes his hand forth.

She takes his sweaty palm and out a force of habit offers a, "How do you do?"

"I'm well, thank you. Please take a seat."

She does as she is told but can't keep her eyes off the girl in the corner. He starts rambling on about some school policy and keeping children safe when she stops him dead in his tracks, "Can she come out of the corner?"

"She is being punished for her crimes. Did you listen to anything I said?"

"Crimes? She is four. Elianna, come over here." Addison motions for her lap and Ellie tentaviley stands and walks over to her waiting to be hoisted up. She pats down her tangled curls and asks her gently about what happened. Mr. Franklin immediately interjects but Addison informs his she couldn't care less about what he had to say regarding the situation.

"Then he said my braid looked dumb so I pushed him at the wall." Ellie sniffles as she reaches for her curls.

Addison can not for the life of her remember braiding her hair this morning although with the week she has had it definitely could have happened. She senses something deeper but decides not to prod the child. Instead she stands, helping Ellie off her lap, and offers her goodbye to the headmaster.

"Ms. Montgomery, we are not done here. Children need discipline and structure. At St. Simon's we are dedicated to giving our children the very best so that they can reach their fullest potential."

"I understand what you are saying but I really think that this is a family matter and we will discuss it at length when we are home. Rest assured that I will get to the bottom of this." She offers before spinning back around on her heel and heading for the door.

"That isn't good enough. This is to be dealt with here. It happened on school property. What do you suppose I say when parents ask me about the class bully today? How do you propose that I go about dealing with her potential anger issues when you aren't available to help me in the slightest? People wait years and pay thousands to get into this school. It has prestige, we do not deal with these situations as lightly as say a public school would Ms. Montgomery." He finishes and takes a seat pushing his glasses back up.

Addison feels her frustration and anger moutning as she turns to her younger counterpart, "Ellie if you walk out the door right there Uncle Derek is waiting. I want you to go sit with him and your sister, ok?" She nods and walks away as quickly as her feet will carry her. When Addison hears the door click shut she turns and paces back toward the desk like she is about to yell at an incompetent intern.

"It's doctor." She returns trying not to shout yet.

"Excuse me?"

"Dr. Addison Montgomery, MD. Not some stupid doctorate in say education like you hold. I'm a surgeon so stop addressing me like I am one of your children."

"Dr. Montgomery I was only trying to make my point. I never meant to-"

"I'm only saying this once more. I will deal with it at home. You don't get to tell me how to raise her because we shell out thousands and waited on some list. For you to think that she has potential anger problem only signifies to me that you have never spent any time with her and damn it if I'm paying thousands I would at least expect you to do your fucking job and research her file before you called me into some bullshit meeting."

"There is no need to get upset. I was merely-"

"Merely trying to make me feel bad. You know what Charles, is it? I'm doing my best, she is doing her best, we all are all doing our fucking best. Sorry if that isn't good enough for you."

"I'm not saying anything of the sort. For you to imply-"

"She's dead. Ok? Her mother, my sister…not that it is any of your business, is dead. Just died! We are having a difficult transition time. I don't really care if she pushes some kid for making fun of her right now. She has the right to be upset and angry at the world for taking her mother and I have a hunch that she braided her own hair because I forgot this morning. Because that's how my sister used to do her hair everyday before class, and I forgot because I'm still trying to deal! I am doing my best-"

"Addison, enough." Derek warns as he shuts the door behind him. He moves quickly wrapping an arm around her waist to escort her from the room.

"I'm sorry. We'll, I'll call you tomorrow. So sorry about this." He shakes his head as he helps her out the door to where the two red heads sit waiting exhausted.

"Get your hands off of me!" She shouts as they enter the reception area.

He pulls back quickly never having seen her like this. He's seen her temper flare in all kinds of directions but this is entirely new. "Give me the keys."

"I can drive." She states defiantly folding her arms against her chest like the four year old in front of her.

"I'll wrestle them from you and don't for one second think that I don't know exactly where your ticklish spot is." He challenges as he reaches for the purse.

"I hate you." She mutters as she tosses the keys in a very angered and un-playful demeanor.

**_-----_**

"You have to talk to me sometime, you know?" He asks as he clears the table from their insanely tongue-tied dinner.

On the inside all she feels is dead, completely numb. She knows that she should be remorseful and utterly embarrassed by her earlier behavior but right now she feels nothing and finds it safer to keep quiet at the risk of exploding again.

She toys with her fork, shoving the food around on her plate, and then carefully sets it on the edge. She's spent the better part of a week caring for everyone else and would love nothing more than for someone to just hold her for a minute and promise that everything will be alright. She needs a hollow word of praise from anyone's mouth in this moment but instead all she gets is an unavoidable fight with Derek.

"Hey Ellie, why don't you head upstairs and work on some homework." Addison offers.

"I don't have any."

"Just go to your room please." Addison quietly pleads.

Her lip begins to quiver and her tears border on spilling as she slide out of the wooden chair and steadies herself on her feet. "Am I in trouble?"

"No sweetie, I just need to talk to Uncle Derek for a minute."

"Ok." She replies hesitantly and walks from the room with her hands clasped in front of her.

"She had a rough day."

"Yes." She replies without any emotion left in her voice.

"So."

"Yeah. I just, can we do something for once without yelling because I don't think I can take that right now."

"All yelled out, huh?" He teases as he reaches for the dishwasher handle.

"Derek, please."

"Sure." He stops what he is doing and takes a seat across the table from her. He absorbs her pale appearance and decides that she looks completely spent. She begins a well rehearsed speech; it isn't like she hasn't had some time with the idea. That alone drives him insane. It isn't that he is mad about having a child with her; it's that she chose to keep it a secret. He always hoped to have children with her but she was never ready so he gave up on the dream and moved on. Now faced with the possibility of being a Dad he is slightly more than frightened. He pulls himself from his thoughts and decides that this shouldn't be taking place right now. "Addison, stop."

"No, please just let me get it out and then you can leave and not look back. I have to say my peace."

"You can and you will but how about I clean up here with the lovely Miss Kennedy who is too passed out to be of any real use and you go take a bath and talk to Elianna. This whole thing can wait a day. I'll call Richard and explain, he'll understand."

"Are you sure? We could, I mean I'm ready. I can take it."

"Positive. Go, scoot. I even promise not to break any of your pretty girly plates." He grins as she shuffles to her feet and offers him the weakest smile he's ever seen on her face before turning to head upstairs.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Mark spent the greatest portion of his day on the floor. He was wrapped in an old sleeping bag in the middle of what is probably supposed to be the dining room trying to sort through his feelings. On one hand he loved her, he always had and when he looked at it that way it didn't seem so awful. But on the other hand it was someone else's baby; from the looks of it Derek's and he would probably pull some dreamy shit and win back the girl he never had time for. Derek always wanted kids with Addison and if Mark had to be honest so did he. It is a never-ending contest between the two and Mark thought that for once he had the head start.

After wallowing for far too long he stood in the sand, taking in the warmth, and trying not to look in the direction of her house. He squidged his toes together and apart as he thought about what it would take to stay with her. Wondering all the while if the respectable thing to do would be to walk away for once. He put effort towards attempting to convince himself that he moved for the change and not for her but everyone knew how big of a lie that was.

So after a day jam packed full of nothing and everything he finds himself on her lit front porch. After those nine hours he has got nothing. No game plan. No ideas on what is the best way to progress, all he knows is that he has to see her. He thinks that maybe her brilliantly gleaming red hair and ever steady eyes will somehow direct him towards the right decision. He tentatively rings the doorbell and holds his breath until it is answered.

"Derek?" He gasps as he feels his stomach twist in the anticipation of his worst fears being true.

**_-----_**

* * *


	15. You're barely scraping by

A/N: So it is almost Friday in my world, I figure close enough. It ran long again so you will see what I do. Thanks to my beta for tweaking the little things and to everyone who keeps reading and commenting. You guys are the driving force behind the quick turnaround so thanks! Enjoy-

**_-----_**

**_Buried deep as you can dig inside yourself  
And covered with a perfect shell  
Such a charming, beautiful exterior  
Laced with brilliant smiles and shining eyes  
Perfect posture, but you're barely scraping by  
But you're barely scraping by  
This is one time, this is one time  
That you can't fake it hard enough to please everyone  
Or anyone at all...or anyone at all  
And the grave that you refuse to leave  
The refuge that you've built to flee  
The places that you've come to fear the most  
It's the place that you have come to fear the most_**  
_- Dashboard Confessional, "The Places That You Have Come to Fear the Most"_

**_-----_**

"You coming in?" Derek asks as the breeze sweeps by him flowing into the back of the house.

"I…uh, is she okay?" Mark asks as he mentally toes the line of entering the house. This could be an entire coincidence that he is there. The problem is though that in Mark's life things don't happen by coincidence and more often than not he settles for them happening to him.

"What do you think?" As Derek grows further annoyed he begins to lean against the door carefully crossing his feet in front of one another.

"I don't know, that's why I asked." Mark counters as he kicks at her doormat. He finds the irony in it. She has many, many doormats; he is merely one of the larger versions.

"Would you be okay?"

"No." He scoffs as both of their tones rise with intensity and exasperation.

"Well then there you have it." Derek is always into making Mark look stupid. Call it revenge for getting every girl, call it brotherly rivalry, call it whatever you want Derek really enjoys it. Because the truth is Mark is far from stupid, at least book wise. You don't get to being at the top of your field by chasing skirts especially in a male dominated field. So all of his private life debacles aside Mark is nothing short of brilliant and it has always kind of bothered Derek that he just gets things. The things that he would have to study for hours for. Addison is the same way though, she just gets things. It is, however, an admirable quality that she possesses as opposed to her counterpart at the door.

"Should I…I mean I guess I could just see her tomorrow at work."

"I wouldn't count on that."

"Why?" He asks as he takes a small step forward trying to peer beyond Derek.

"I think she may take the day off." He watches as Mark shifts in the doorway. He grows frustrated with the situation quickly because of all the people out there he wishes Mark would just come inside and help out. He is fairly certain that he won't. He'll get scared and run like he always does when something big happens.

"Oh. Well I will call in the morning. It's late, I just wanted to check."

"Sure." Derek replies as he begins to shut the door wishing he could actually slap Mark. He wishes that the door would reach out and knock some sense into him. As much as the whole thing irks him, and it still does because it was after all his wife, he knows that the one person she needs around right now is Mark. "Why don't you stay? You can help me clean up dinner. There's leftovers if you want." He offers.

"I could do that I guess. I'm not hungry but I can clean."

"Amazing, I may have to call Mom and let her know you finally admitted that." He smiles as he pulls the door back farther.

**_-----_**

It is still uncomfortable to be around him solely without the distraction of anyone else but they quickly fall into old habits and by the time Addison pulls herself from the steaming bath water and wraps a fluffy robe around herself she finds them on her couch watching what looks like _Sportscenter_.

Her breath catches as she sees the back of the head she has been longing for next to the back of the head she has been stuck with. "Hi."

They both turn towards the sound of her voice but Derek turns back first. "I'm going to go to sleep I think."

"It's early Derek."

"Big day saving you from the headmaster and all." He gives a grin, a fake yawn and stretch before heading off the couch for the stairs. He gives her a reassuring nod to imply that Mark isn't going to unhinge his jaw and swallow her whole as he takes his first step upwards.

"So…" He begins unsure of what should follow after that.

"So."

"Headmaster?" He asks as his smirk begins to appear and she takes a seat on the couch with a good distance between the two.

"I don't want to talk about it." She replies carefully folding her legs. On second thought she thinks it is absurd to sit so lady like when all one is wearing is a robe so she uncrosses them and settles for nervously pulling at the soft material on her lap.

"Ok." They fall silent for a good ten minutes before he stands and walks toward the foyer. He gives her a good long look but still has nothing to say. Seeing her made it no easier for him to decide what to do.

"Don't leave me." She aches out hoping that he'll hear. She can't raise her voice to anything above a whisper but it's enough because he stops dead in his tracks and comes back to her.

They settle on using no words as she begins to cry softly from her spot on the couch when he takes a seat again. This could be the landslide, the whole day that he missed out on because he was too busy being angry at her could be the straw that broke the camel's back. He slaps himself for not being more available. Even though they have issues that really need to be resolved he knows that she can't do anything like that right now. So he shifts himself next to her and immediately puts his arms around her and pulls back towards his chest.

She wishes that she was stronger than needing him right now. She almost wishes that anyone could do the trick but she rapidly resigns to the fact that the only person she wants to witness this is him. It could be partly because it is always him who is left picking up her pieces; it could be that he is just so good at being patient with her, but most of all she thinks it could be because there is something so wonderfully inviting and safe about being in his arms.

As he strokes her hair away from her eyes he feels the light tears turn into full hysterics. She instinctively covers her mouth to curb the aching noise that rises from her chest. He pulls her hand back lacing his fingers through hers and resting them on his leg so as to keep her from trying to use them. Then he waits a good five minutes as he feels her breathing become more labored and as the noises that leave her break his heart. He's dealt with the hysterics before, he has seen her at her absolute lowest, but this is something new for him. "Addie you need to breathe."

She gasps inward catching on the mucus that has accumulated and immediately begins coughing as the tears still stream down her face soaking the light material of his blue cotton shirt. She mutters something incoherently as her throat constricts again and she shrieks as she tries to inhale.

"Breathe deep breaths. You have to calm down." He pulls his other hand free from their mess of body parts and lightly begins to rub up and down her spine while she continues on with the show.

Her chest rises and falls unevenly leaving her core burning from the lack of oxygen. She lets the liquid soak her face and his shirt leaving a mess that is sure to embarrass her the next day. "I can't." She mutters as her throat tightens again and she already knows that it will hurt like hell tomorrow.

He maintains working on her back trying to get her to calm herself but the touching only seems to draw out the force of her sobbing. She refuses to move off of him as he tries to tilt her chin upward. She pushes back against him burying herself deeper into the small nook between his neck and shoulder as he tries to get her to look at him. All she wants to do is hide out until it doesn't hurt anymore; no one should have to see her like this.

"Addison, slow down." He's really just warning her. He knows what follows after this kind of emotional outburst and he can hardly stand to see what her psyche is going to cook up next. He'd lay money that she pretends on being fine tomorrow and then comes back home and cries it all out again because that's just the kind of woman she is. But she could surprise them all and start taking care of herself for once.

"No, no, no." She murmurs as she clenches the edge of his shirt in her trembling hands. Her body shakes involuntarily as she persists.

He resorts to a new tactic. "You need to stop because if you keep going we both know what will happen. You don't need an anxiety attack right now. So just breathe through it." He tries to pull her head up again as he feels her heart pounding relentlessly against his chest but she refuses. Apparently scaring her into breathing won't work this time either.

Derek is busy watching from about halfway up the stairs. He kind of wishes that he was the one she would run to but he lost that chance a long time ago. As he watches Mark attempt to deal with her he contemplates on going down and helping. He rationalizes that if he were down there then she wouldn't allow herself to do this, which is a good thing and a bad thing. From a medical stand point she is going to have to stop soon before she loses it all and it would be beneficial for his child is she could breathe but on the other hand he can appreciate the nature of grieving and understands that things have to take their course. So he sighs and places his hands on his head while he watches his ex deal with something that no one can soothe. He knows the pain of losing someone close too well and this situation isn't exactly easy for him to be in but it is about what she needs. He surrenders himself to watching the scene unfold in front of him like a willing extra that is no longer needed on stage.

Mark musters enough strength to get them both standing but she is leaning fully against him, hell bent on letting go of the wrinkled fabric in between her fingers. So he pushes her back off of him and carefully places her on the couch watching for a second to see if she will start up again. The sudden shift in elevations have made her silent and he wonders if it is best not to comfort her for the time being. "Enough is enough." He whispers.

The only thing she feels is pain. It hurts to the point of affecting her physically. She feels her heart burn and all she knows is the anguish breaking through the cage she has tried to keep it locked in. The flood gates have been burst through so she draws her knees up to her chest and clenches on for dear life as the tears begin again. She would really appreciate any control over the matter but has already found that she is fighting a losing battle. Everyone has been waiting for this. The moment where she snaps and she is upset with herself for giving it to them; for giving it to Mark when he walked away from her. She slowly begins rocking herself back and forth like it will help as Mark stands tentatively eyeing her from above. "Go away." She whispers.

"No."

"Go away!" This time it's a shout, a command for him to leave her. For him to prove to her that he doesn't want to be around and to spare her the unduly heart ache that will accompany his departure.

He stoops down to her level and grabs both sides of her cheeks to draw her face upward. She, unfortunately, had other ideas and slaps his hands away as she stands.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to be sick." She mutters as she makes her way to the bathroom. She knows it isn't the morning sickness. For once in the last week it isn't the life growing inside her because if you have ever cried so hard it forces you to throw up you know the difference. You can feel it; it is like no other.

**_-----_**

Two hours later she finally collapses into his arms in the bathroom. He has spent the greater portion of the time holding her hair back and trying to calm her with a wet towel on the back of her neck. He has never in his life seen someone throw up so much and yet so little quantity. The whole not eating, I have the flu thing finally made sense to him but he had no idea how awful the reality of it was.

She leans back completely exhausted allowing him to catch her. She lets him wrap his arms around her still shaking frame. She tolerates the warm wet washcloth cleaning her face because she is too tired to raise her own arms. Addison even permits him picking her up off the cold tile and carrying her back to the couch before she says something. "You can go home." It comes out as more of a plead than a demand but it was definitely meant as the latter.

"I just carried you off the bathroom floor because your legs are too weak to support you, I am not going anywhere." He quickly strips off his still wet shirt and jeans tossing them to the floor and then takes a seat behind her pulling her back into the position they fell asleep on that fateful night where Mark thought they stood a chance. The night before it all came undone. He benches the remark of saying something about them both being mostly naked on her couch because that is definitely not what this is all about.

"I have Derek." She is way too tired for that to come out as anything more than a mere fact that he is existing somewhere at the top of the stairs but it hurts him nonetheless.

"Yeah you had Derek in New York too. See how well that worked out?"

"I hate you." She mutters out as he reaches for the blanket on the floor.

He gently kisses the crown of her head and adds, "I know but go to sleep maybe you won't in the morning. Night Addie." He watches as her eyes flutter shut and he smiles to himself when her breathing deepens and her rigid body relaxes against his frame. He laughs inwardly as he shifts his legs to be around both sides of her trying not to picture a retarded crib that he is certainly going to have to put up sooner or later. He watches for a few more minutes because the woman on top of him is so much more peaceful this way than the other and for some reason the fact that he can comfort her brings him sheer joy. His thoughts are cut short as the infant in the corner signals that she is alive and unhappy. He groans as they both sit up and come to terms with what is happening before she stands and makes her way to Kennedy. Ten minutes of sleep was better than the zero she has been getting.

**_-----_**

"She looks better, what happened over there last night?" Naomi pries as they all convene for their morning meeting sans Addison who is busy with Kennedy for the moment.

"Nothing happened." Mark replies as Pete tries to take his usual seat across from him only to find that Derek is in it.

"Did we…are you new?" Violet asks of him as she tries to not tip her coffee over.

Derek chuckles and gives his trademarked smile as he rubs his fingers over the stubble growing on his chin. "No, just visiting."

"Damn right. You need to go home." Mark teases as he reaches for his files.

"I thought it was my turn to follow everyone, you can't leave me all alone in Seattle. I felt so scared and sad." Derek returns.

"Guys, can we focus for a moment and then you can talk in your own little language again." Naomi says as she settles into the back of her chair.

"We can't do anything for her. You have got to stop trying to fix her." Pete says.

Violet reluctantly agrees, "He's right. It has to run its course."

"Until then?" Sam asks as he stalks through the doorway. Cooper was the designated look out slash helper because he tends to get along better with the infant than the rest of the people in the room.

"She still busy?" Naomi asks.

"Yeah, she is going to be tied up for a while. Have you seen Cooper with infants?" He asks astonished by the man's ability to care.

"It's Cooper, he loves children. All shapes and sizes. He is a big kid." Violet adds as she tries to keep her stare off of the dark haired man in the corner.

"So the plan is to wait?" Naomi asks again trying to bring the crowd under control while they spout off into their own little tangents. She feels like she is in a high school cafeteria and kind of wishes she had a big ruler to slap down on the table.

"Yes. And stop bugging her; it all goes at whatever pace she designates. She wants to work, let her work until she kills someone." Violet smiles.

"That's not funny." Mark chimes in because he has seen far too many people die, even in his line of work.

"Yeah, if she kills a patient all hell will break lose in here." Derek adds.

"What? Why?" Pete asks suddenly intrigued. He'll take any information he can get about her; from any source that will divulge it.

"Addison doesn't take the losing of patients too well-" Mark begins.

Derek finishes his sentence though not cutting him off. "She gets too attached sometimes and it's just best for her if they don't die. She's always been bad at the whole patient distance thing."

"She got better."

"Yeah, after a few hard lessons. Those were great nights at home."

"She has it under control, Derek."

He smiles as Mark grows defensive. It's a little late for the showing but he appreciates that he will finally stand up for something. "I know. She's pretty great." All eyes turn to him as his face begins to flash through a series of memories when things with her were good. He loves Meredith, he really does but being down here on Addison's home turf just makes him miss what they had. Besides being on rocky terms with your on again off again girlfriend does nothing to quench the need of human interaction with a peer.

"How do you all know each other again? I wasn't aware that Sam and Naomi had this many friends." Violet remarks as she carelessly flips through an open chart pretending to read it.

"Ex-husband." Pete fills in as he points to Derek and Violet almost chokes on her coffee.

"Oh."

Sam smirks a very satisfied grin, happy to see that she is finally deterred from yesterday's escapades. "Yeah."

"You guys are the worst with code signals. Shut up and look busy she is like two seconds behind me." Cooper shouts as he bursts through the door and flings himself into the closest chair breathing heavily. "I had to look like an idiot speed walking into here so you all wouldn't get caught. Pay attention next time we have a secret op."

"Sorry Cooper." They all mutter as she comes through the door looking completely refreshed and smiling.

"Morning everyone." Addison begins as she heads toward the empty end of the table infant in hand.

"You got her to sleep." Pete whispers as she takes a seat next to him.

"Eh, that was all Cooper. I've given up on the fact that she will ever like me." Addison returns happy to be back to work. The morning went as smoothly as it possibly could with one bouncy four year old who has got to be a morning person, two cranky men needing coffee when she was completely out, one screaming infant as always, and one Addison trying to recover from the emotional hangover of last night's extravaganza. She takes a swig of the wheatgrass concoction in front of her and turns to the rest of the group, "What?"

"Nothing. You look good." Naomi replies as she takes in her friend's appearance.

"I feel good. Shall we get down to business?"

"Yeah. Alright what's everyone got today?"

Mark begins with a patient list and the need to run to the hospital to verify that he is set up on the premises to use their services. Cooper gives a quick run down of the few clients he has while Violet announces that she has some free time if anyone needs her and is quickly scooped up by Pete who has a patient in need of her services. Sam confers with Naomi about a couple that they both have the reigns over and Addison quickly requests Dell for the day because she is booked solid and could use some help loosing things up.

"So this is co-op medicine?" Derek asks with a smile.

"Yes." Addison nods as they all stand and prepare themselves for the day.

**_-----_**

"Nice work Dell." Addison says as she flashes a smile a little later in the day when they emerge from a routine exam.

Derek finds her in the hallway. He has been in and out enjoying their routine and catching a few rays of the sun on his permanently pale rain soaked skin. "Hey Addie, do you have a second?"

"Umm. Yeah, I need to go get Kennedy off of Naomi's hands but then I'm free for an hour."

Derek glances down at his watch knowing that Mark is at the hospital. "Want to do lunch? You can show me around a bit."

"Sure." She hurries to her office as her stomach clenches into knots declaring the battle to keep all saltines down officially over. So what If she can't enjoy food for the next two months or so, she could still be polite and take a friend out to lunch.

**_-----_**

"You going to eat?" He asks when their food arrives and has been sitting for a good ten minutes.

"No." She replies quietly. She is waiting, merely buying time until he wants to talk about their issues.

"You feel okay?"

"Fine. Just no real point in eating things that you can't keep down, you know?" She asks with a weak smile while the anticipation mounts within her.

"You should still eat. You could surprise yourself."

"No thanks." He carries on with his lunch and Addison watches the traffic on the sidewalks passing the time.

"Reminds me of New York a little." Addison turns back to him surprised by his sudden out burst. "I mean, it's different down here. L.A. is like its own country but all the people…just feels like home."

She is surprised by his admission because for all the time they spent in Seattle trying to make it work he never referred to New York as home. He actually refused, with the exception of her presence, to admit that that part of his life ever existed. "Yeah. I….uh, I miss home."

"Me too." He grins. "Look at us. Down in Los Angeles of all places. That's insane. Can you believe-"

She cuts him off before he can continue because she kind of has a felling of where this is all headed. "I know. We are the most ridiculously dysfunctional people I have ever encountered."

He laughs a little as he watches the sun bounce off of her straightened hair. "Yes, we are."

She grows quiet and weary of the people around her. She suddenly feels the need for fresh air as the situation topples down on top of them. "And now we are having a baby."

He watches her cheerful attitude disintegrate in front of his eyes. "We have a lot of time to work out that issue. How far along are you?"

"Almost eight weeks."

"Ok, so we have a while."

"You have to go back to Seattle."

"Not right away. I have a few more days down here with you. We will get to the baby part, Addison, I swear but you were having a good day so we should stick with that program."

"Too late, it's gone." She turns to fidgeting with the napkin on her lap. "Could you just yell at me already because the anticipation of the whole thing is killing me."

"You want me to yell at you, in a restaurant?"

"I want you to yell and scream and get it out of your system. I want you to get angry because we made a mistake, one that's going to ruin your life forever. I want to hear you shout at me because I never wanted to have a child when we were married and I want you to stop the McDreamy crap and go back to your annoying jackass of a self." She finishes without a real coup de grace but figures she shouldn't have to come up with one.

He stands instead carefully placing his napkin down on the table. "I'm trying to be the nice guy here. I am a great guy Addison, you know that. Deep down you know that we were great together. Just because we fell apart doesn't mean that we can't do this… so I'm sorry you feel that way about having our child. If it was such a mistake then why don't you go get it taken care of?" He keeps his voice steady and calm and then he leaves her sitting at the table, pulling at the cloth napkin trying not to cry. So much for the good day.

**_-----_**

"What did you do!" Sam states as he slaps Derek across the chest later that day. Addison came back from lunch withdrawn, quiet, and locked herself in her office in between patients. She was painfully cordial and chipper with her expectant mothers and the members of the office but they all knew something was off.

"Ouch! And nothing. We went to lunch, when did you become abusive?"

"What happened at said lunch Derek?" Violet pipes up from the back of the group.

"Oh no, I am not going there with your kind."

"My kind?"

"Oh, it is so on. Good luck buddy." Sam whispers as he turns toward his next patient.

"What's going on?" Mark asks after his return from the hospital. The meetings all went as expected and he meet a few members of the staff. He is actually kind of excited to be working here as opposed to solely in a hospital where he gets stuck with stupid interns and annoying red tape. He can pick and choose his patients now. He can pick and choose when to operate and how. Mark loves the power that comes with being in a private practice.

"Nothing."

"Derek did something to Addison. She won't come out of there unless she has a patient. Naomi tried to corner her earlier into talking but she won't."

"What did you do?" Mark asks again.

"Nothing for the hundredth time. We went to lunch. That was all."

"I'll go see what I can do." He walks to her door and quietly knocks anticipating nothing in return. She slowly pulls the door open with a silly grin on her face. "Hey."

"Hi."

"Can I come in?" He asks as he is about to take a step forward.

"Sure." She opens her door widely, glares at Derek, and then turns shutting it softly.

"So what's going on?" He tries again as he takes a seat in one of her chairs.

"Nothing. Just trying to catch up on some paperwork in between patients. How was the hospital?"

He is a little put off by the act and it is a damn good one at that. He can't honestly tell if she is ok or just pulling it together until a later time. Her face shows no tell tale signs of crying and her clothes are wrinkle free so he knows he hasn't been balled up under her desk sobbing in between patients. "It was good. Anything exciting happen here?"

She smiles. "Rarely do exciting things happen here. This is not a hospital Mark. Sometimes we get an emergency but most of the time it is the same old same old."

"Right." He tugs on the collar of his shirt. "So how do you deal with that?"

"Deal with what?"

"The whole not cutting, boring same old same old thing? You are a surgeon Addison."

She laughs a little remembering her break down last week and replies earnestly, "I take it in stride and sometimes I have little freak outs where I need to cut."

Mark heard all about the catastrophe last week so he lets a smile escape his lips and stands again. "Well, I was thinking we could all go shopping tonight."

"I don't know, It's a school night and-"

"You sound like a mom. Where is fun, loves to shop Addison who drug me out the other night? I know you need more stuff. It would make life easier."

"That's true. Ok, I guess. I'll meet you at my house say five-ish?"

"That works. We could make Derek watch the kids."

"Ha…no. Nice try." He stands after her remark and leaves the office a little unsure of what transpired. He has nothing to report back to the group other than that she seems ok.

**_-----_**

"You really want to do this Addison?" Naomi asks as she digs through her closet.

"Yeah, it will be fun. Are you saying that you couldn't use some retail therapy?" Addison suggests as she hastily pulls the greenish sweater from the back of the row. Her clothes are organized by genre and then by color which should, in theory, make getting dressed easier but sometimes it only creates more confusion.

"Green?"

"I like green."

"Addie!" Ellie screams as she bounds into the room.

"Ellie, your voice." She warns as she points to the infant on the bed.

"Sorry." She almost whispers. "Can I wear this shopping?" She beams as she swirls around in the blue dress.

"Sure." Really four year logic completely eludes Addison and the reasons behind needing permission to wear a dress shopping is way over her head.

"Today at school Blake said sorry to me."

"That's nice Ellie. Why don't you go downstairs and wait for us." She bounces from the room with her hair flowing behind her.

**_-----_**

"Can I have that one for my birthday?" Elianna pleads as they drift from aisle to aisle in the toy store. Mark is stuck with the cart, Derek with the baby, all while Naomi, Maya, Addison and Ellie throw things into the basket.

"Sure." Addison smiles as they round the corner.

"And a princess party!" Ellie squeals as she tears off to Maya.

"Aunt Addison she is so cute." Maya fawns as the four year old insistently tugs on her arm pulling her to their next destination. Addison swears this is the most bizarre family outing she has ever been on but so far they are without incident.

"Great, you can have her." Is the reply and it is met with a swift hit from Naomi begging her not to encourage her daughter to ever procreate.

"When is Elianna's birthday?"

"No idea. July I think…I can't remember." Addison suddenly grows silent as the tail end of the sentence drags out and Naomi twists her so that they are facing.

"Hey, you don't have to remember. Not your kid, alright?"

"Yeah, I know. I'm her Aunt though and her godmother. I'm horrible at this."

"You are doing fine."

"Addison!" Derek calls from behind.

"Yeah?"

"Problem." Points out Mark who is getting really sick of pushing all this crap around in circles. When he said a few things to make life easier he didn't mean four hours of endless shopping. His feet hurt and his arms are already sore from lifting things into the multiple trunks. He knows he has a night ahead of him being forced to unpack and put together the various items that were bought.

"What?" Naomi asks as they all come to a stop.

"Her birthday is in two days. Remember when we all flew out here that year?"

"Oh." Is the only thing she can get out of her mouth as her brain tries to remember what in the world a princess party could entail and the ways to get that operation off the ground by tomorrow evening. There are a few things that Pierce really should have notified her of.

"We'll work it out. Together." Naomi assures as she pulls Addison by the arm back up to her.

**_-----_**

The group made it through five stores in four and half brutal hours before settling in for dinner. It was quickly decided upon that the girls could handle ordering take out as the men attempted to get everything unloaded and set up. Mark is rest assured that he has never seen so much baby stuff in his life and Derek just keeps grinning as he watches Mark squirm.

One hour after the house has cleared and dinner is put away Mark and Derek find themselves on the floor of a spare bedroom attempting to place together a crib.

Derek is sprawled with his feet in front of him and the directions between his legs. "Ok, so part A connects to part F with a part J."

"Derek, that doesn't even make sense." Mark states as he lifts part J into the air.

He crumples the directions into a ball and chucks them into the corner. "We're doing this the old fashioned way."

"Agreed. How hard could this be anyway? We are intelligent men. We can do this." Mark confirms as he twists a useless screwdriver in the air.

An hour after that they stand admiring their project when Addison appears in the doorway. She watches as they stretch and moan while their joints crackle. She smiles as she subconsciously rests her hand over her flat stomach and for half a moment doesn't feel so bad about this whole thing. But she knows that this is only temporary. That they will soon leave her. Derek has to go back to his mistress in Seattle and Mark doesn't live here. Mark isn't anything other than a friend and she wishes, more than she should, that she could change that but she is certain no one wants to date the pregnant woman.

**_-----_**

After finally settling into the living room for the remainder of the evening Derek finds himself growing tired from the days activities. He is used to the normal hustle and bustle of hospital demands but shopping for hours and just being in Addison's presence as she tries to hold it all together is absolutely exhausting. "We should sleep soon." He yawns, this time for real.

"We should." Mark confirms as he shifts on the couch reaching for a pillow.

Addison makes her way to her aching feet and decides that they can figure out who sleeps where. She mutters a goodnight before heading upstairs for another sleepless night.

"Well this is going well." Derek notes as he watches her figure retreat.

"Maybe she worked it all out last night." Mark states as he recounts the evening's awful adventures.

"Doubtful." They grow silent almost waiting for something to happen but nothing does. They settle for staring at the blank TV screen for twenty minutes both lost in their thoughts. What they don't know is that they are both thinking of the same thing, the baby.

For Derek's part he almost wishes that she would have considered an abortion. It's an absolutely awful thing to hope for but he would be lying if he told you he didn't think it would be easier. So half of him wants her to give up on the idea and the other half of him is seriously considering ditching Seattle and trying to win back his ex-wife. He is pretty sure that he could take Mark if push came to shove because they have a history. Although being with her isn't really what he wants for the rest of his life he feels as though it is expected of him to at least try.

For Mark's part all he can think about is how to try and win her over when she is carrying her ex-husband's baby. It makes everything so much more complicated. Every step forward is faced with two backwards and he isn't sure that he could even raise a child, let alone one that isn't his to begin with. He sighs heavily forgetting that Derek is even in the room and all he wants to do is go hold her so she will sleep for a change. He shuffles to his feet signaling that he is going up to check on her and Derek waves him off knowing that this isn't his territory no matter how much he wants it to be.

**_-----_**

"Addison?" He asks softly as his bare feet catch the coldness of the wood flooring. He knocks lightly against the door before trying the handle.

"Addie?" He asks again as he peers his head into the room. He doesn't see her anywhere near the bed so he steps in quickly closing the door behind him. "Add? You in here?" He makes quick work of checking by the bed and the closet before he hears her.

He quickly makes his way into the bathroom and finds her pressed up against the white marble of the bathtub clenching her knees and bawling. The one difference between the nights is that no sound leaves her body this time and that is perhaps more frightening than the previous episode. "Addison." He states, trying to command her eyes to follow his voice but they don't. He feels that something is wrong as he walks closer to her and eventually kneels next to her shaking figure.

Out of habit he grabs her wrist. "Addison your pulse is insane you have to breathe." She gasps in for air but Mark quickly pulls her into his lap trying to help calm her again. He isn't sure that it will work tonight either but he figures it is worth a shot.

She chokes out another sob and suddenly feels herself in Mark's warm arms as her heart pounds through her chest. She feels his hot hand against her cool, clammy forehead as her world grows a little fuzzy. "Mark…" She whispers when the black and white dots grow closer. She can't hear his response before her head spins and the scene in front of her fades to black. Her body goes limp in his arms and he momentarily blanks before the doctor in him switches on.

"Addison." Mark snaps his fingers over her face and races to grab her wrist again. He lifts them both off the floor and makes it the top of the stairs before yelling out, "Derek!"

**_-----_**

* * *


	16. Every smile makes you cry

A/N: So yeah...some hospital time and the like. I need to start moving the storyline a bit so expect that next chapter. Thanks to the master beta for all her help and to everyone who reads and comments. You make me want to write for someone other than myself so thanks!

**_-----_**  
**_I know it cuts you inside every time that you try  
To take a pathway in life that leaves you so un-obliged  
Every promise is lies, every smile makes you cry  
Leaves you so un-alive, so un-alive  
I wish I could take the fall  
Maybe by that I could solve  
The problems we're all having  
It's been a while since you've felt like you've been home  
Your life's just flesh and bone  
_**_-The Classic Crime, "I Know The Feeling"_

**_-----_**

The short car ride was fraught with Addison fighting to stay conscious. She bounced in Mark's arms; her eyes darting furiously when they could be complied to staying open. Her body ached as though she had just gotten off of a thirty six hour shift; the kind that riddled her internship and residency. She could feel her shaking fingertips interlaced with Mark's when the car finally stopped. By the time they got her inside she was down for the count again.

After several paralyzing moments of fear Derek and Mark managed to get Sam over with the girls and Addison into the car. They figured they could handle getting her to the ER faster than any ambulance would ever arrive and as Derek slammed on the gas and peeled out of the driveway Mark was certain they were all headed towards some form of car crash. Upon arrival they were pushed away by a myriad of ER staff and instructed to wait in some room while she was being worked on.

They sat without words for a what felt like eternity. The small TV bound to the wall above them provided comfortable background noise and the bustling staff something to look at as their hearts were beating in the stomachs. They shared an occasional look and an intermittent breath hitch when a nurse would approach them. So far no one was telling them anything and they were both growing uneasy and anxious. They crossed and uncrossed legs. Wrung and un-wrung hands together. Rubbed, scratched, pinched and pulled at the skin and hair on their faces. They pulled at seams and twisted hems of shirts until tiny wrinkles took place. Nothing helped to pass the time while the most important woman in their lives was stuck somewhere hanging above the perils of hell; they hoped only figuratively and not literally.

**_-----_**

"What do we know?" Naomi asks as she marched into the waiting room to find two very exhausted looking men.

Mark swallowed hard and choked on his words so Derek managed to etch out, "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." He confirms as he shifts uncomfortably in a plastic chair from some nightmare. He arches his back trying to straighten his spine and met by a series of debilitating pains.

"And you two are just sitting here?" She asks impatiently tapping her slipper on the carpet in front of her. She was in such a hurry after Sam's call that all she managed to do was leave Maya a note and throw a coat on over her pajamas. She jammed her feet into the closest things resembling shoes which she will surely regret latter but right now couldn't care less about wearing her daughter's fuzzy slippers.

"They told us to wait." Mark finally mutters.

"And you listened for once! What the hell is wrong with you guys? I'm going to go find out what exactly is going on. Wait here." She pauses for a second taking one last objective look before deciding that the last part wasn't necessary. Their shoes are cemented to the dingy carpet.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"What happened!" Cooper shouts minutes later as he sees the two staring at the TV and not paying attention. He has managed to drag along Violet who may be in worse shape than Naomi. Cooper, still freshly dressed because he had to ditch a date for this swung by and plucked the psychiatrist from her house, sweats and all. She bitched and moaned something about needing sleep and that he could just call if it was serious but he strapped her into the car himself and forced her to call Pete.

On her own behalf Violet silently admits that she is happy enough to be involved in this mess. She doesn't have many friends and to be called during an emergency means something, right? She takes a seat next to Mark and licks her freshly brushed minty teeth. Attempting to settle in for the long haul she stretches out her legs and slumps down in the chair looking at Cooper expectantly.

Derek, who is obviously to more composed of the two, answers first with, "She passed out in the bathroom. Mark found her, we don't know anything yet. Naomi went to yell."

"That sounds promising." Violet remarks, meaning the bit about Naomi but then grimaces as she realizes that that was inappropriate even for her.

"Maybe I should go try and help. I mean I have been around her and I-"

"Take a seat Cooper." Violet reassures him. He takes the last one in the row next to her and follows everyone's gaze to the television in the corner. Sports never seemed so dull before.

**_-----_**

Pete rushed from his house directly into his car and started driving before Violet could even finish her sentence. He hung up without saying goodbye knowing that he had the longest distance to drive out of any of the group. He found himself genuinely concerned and not just because he not-so secretly had a crush on her. Putting the pedal to the metal his mind swarmed with ways to help fix whatever problems could be wrong. Pete, like any good doctor, is a healer. But for him this is all a little more personal. For him, it is about the hope that Addison represents. It is the hope that if she can continue on with her life holding onto some strange belief that everything will be alright, then maybe he can get through it too. With or without her.

He doesn't even bother asking what happened as he finds the group in the waiting room. It is noticeably empty with the exception of his colleagues minus Sam. He vaguely remembers something about babysitting. He scuffs his shoes along the carpet as he takes the last seat available next to Derek. No one acknowledges his presence. They are all lost in their own worlds. Mark is holding his head in his hands, Derek is fingering his stubble, Violet is pretending to sleep, Cooper is watching the blank TV, and Naomi is fidgeting with her phone. He picks up the slack and lifts up an old magazine from the table next to him. He flips without looking, scans without reading.

**_-----_**

Charlotte hustles from Addison's room where she has been stationed for the better part of an hour to the waiting room to find a whole passel of people. She marches up to them and deciding that since no one else is around she can do this here, "What the hell did y'all do to her?"

They look up instantly trying to figure out the voice that goes with the face. She watches as the little light bulbs turn on in their heads and the hamsters scurry back to their wheels to begin work. No one answers her and instead she is greeted by vague and terrified looks. "I'm going to ask it again and this time someone better have an answer."

"We didn't do anything!" Derek cuts in already pissed off by the tone in this woman's voice. Charlotte scowls at the man who dared talk to her like that. He appears to be another new one, they seem to be multiplying over night much to her dismay.

"Are you going to give us the bullet or the run around?" Naomi asks as she grows weary. Dealing with Charlotte King on a good day is difficult let alone when your friend is the one in the room. She hasn't been in this hospital since Reagan's death and was really hoping not to come back any time soon.

"You want the bullet?" Charlotte asks as she turns back to the all too familiar face.

"Yes!" They all scream back like a group of petulant children who have had their favorite toy ripped from their hands and have been sentenced to death by time out.

"Fine since you are all doctors except for maybe you and her-" She points to Derek and Violet.

"I'm a doctor for crying out loud." Violet counters.

"Just not of the medical persuasion, don't worry I'll dumb it down for you."

"Oh my god." She looks to Cooper who hasn't given her the red flag to stop yet, "Are you seriously doing this or are we-"

Cooper finally jumps in and clamps his hand over her mouth. She bites down hard leaving him with oval marks and a falsetto scream to his credit. "Shut it, ouch!"

"Stop, just stop it. We need to know what happened." Naomi pleads as she stares down the two at the end of the row.

"No." she pauses looking down at the paperwork she has in her hand, "Derek...needs to know what happened as he's her emergency contact. You..." At which Mark's head shoots up and glances from the bitchy queen and his ex-best friend. He doesn't know why he's surprised, but he is all the same as her words burn down his throat.

"Like hell Charlotte! She is my employee, my best friend, and you are going to tell us all about what's happened because you know we wont be blindsided by your...your paperwork" Naomi yells. She stands up drawing herself up to her full height and even in the slippers she towers above the younger woman.

"Fine, come with me." Charlotte turns on her heels and begins walking away but quickly senses that no one is following her and stops. She turns back to them. "I'm not discussing a patient with you all in the waiting room so let's move it. I was on my way out the door before I got paged for this."

She stalks off again and they all grumble to their feet following in a cohesive line. "Yeah like she has anything to go home to." Pete mumbles.

"I heard that quack!"

**_-----_**

They all take their respective seats at the conference room table and wait as Charlotte chucks the chart down on the table in front of her.

"So?" Naomi ventures growing impatient. All she really wants to do is set eyes up on her friend so she knows everything is ok.

"So, take your pick basically. A whole multitude of things going on here really."

"Like?" Mark asks. He has some pretty good ideas but keeps them to himself.

"Well for starters dehydration, exhaustion. Is anyone watching her?"

"Yeah, we are. We just-" Derek starts and then stops himself because the whole thing is futile.

Charlotte intolerantly flips through the file. She has little respect for people who can't take care of themselves. "Hypoglycemia associated with the dehydration, blood pressure was 90/55, heart rate was 180, I mean we can just kind of call it a toss up as to which one sent her over the edge her and caused her to collapse. If I had to put money on anything I would go with the dehydration. Anyone recall the last time she ate or drank anything?"

"She had lunch with Derek." Violet offers trying to remember anything helpful.

"She didn't eat then." Derek finishes.

"She didn't eat dinner." Mark mutters.

"Ok, enough with chastising us. Is she ok, I mean can we go see her, if we promise to watch her from now on?" Naomi throws out there.

"Do you all understand what I am saying to you? I mean all of that coupled with what looks like a panic attack. It's just ridiculous and none of you noticed enough to say something? She could've… she could've- you're lucky." She points out.

The room grows quiet for a moment as they all consider the real implications of all the problems before Pete stops shirking in his chair and speaks up. "Can we see her?"

"She's on 10mg of fluoxetine, by the way thanks for mentioning the pregnancy when you brought her in guys, that was really helpful to discov-"

"You put her on what!" Derek shouts as everyone begins looking around the table.

"It's fine. A lower dose and I used that over a BZD so be thankful that I am good enough at my job to catch these things when your mouth was fused shut." Charlotte attempts.

"Wait, what?" Cooper asks as he looks to Violet for the answers, as usual.

"I knew something was off." She tells him.

"Naomi?" Pete glares.

"What? I couldn't say anything. I was sworn to secrecy."

"Excuse me children I would like to get home at some point…" Charlotte pauses looking down at her watch, "…this morning. So as I was saying she is on a drip and some medication so she is a groggy. I would suggest not having everyone in there so she can rest but we all know you will do whatever you want so I'm not saying anything. I mentioned wanting to keep her for observation, at least until I got all of the blood work back and she started in on me so if one of you could talk her into that I would appreciate it."

She stops again watching the tension mount throughout the room. Apparently she spilled a great secret and it is spreading through the room like wildfire. "Keep her calm, she needs to rest. Which one of you two new guys is Derek?"

"Me." He answers.

"You are her emergency contact so you get the fun of filling out these, if you need any help-"

"I'm a neurosurgeon, I don't need your help…thanks." He mutters as he stares at the mountains of things to sign off below him. He finds it shocking that she hasn't managed to switch "people" but he also rather enjoys it so he lifts the stack from the table and walks to the door. He looks back at the seething clan behind him and adds, "Shall we?"

**_-----_**

They all follow the short blonde haired woman down the hall numbly. Naomi leads the way, threatening to punch out the younger woman at any moment and Mark brings up the rear of the line. He takes each step deliberately so as not to trip over his feet causing god knows what kind of embarrassment in the process. His eyes are cast downward as he mentally tries to prep himself for what he is about to see.

Derek sorts through the thoughts pummeling his mind. He recounts each and every time she has been sick, at least the ones he knows about. She could have been ill somewhere in the last two years of their failing marriage and he never would have noticed. He isn't really sure how they ever got to that point but they certainly did and as he watched Mark run her body down the stairs with the look of distress he has never seen he suddenly remembered that Addison is worth the fight. So what if he is about five years to late in noticing her at least he got it, right?

Mark counts on his fingers the times that he has seen her sick or injured. They have been through the flu seasons and random colds, even food poisoning but never something that has landed her in the hospital. He knows there will be wires, tubes, and hospital gowns encasing her small frame. The one thing he is certain of is that he is going to make sure that this never happens again. No way will she pass out on his watch.

Pete trudges along behind Violet and Cooper trying to wrap his head around the last few hours. He had no idea that she was pregnant and kind of feels like the joke is on him. He glared when Naomi admitted her guilt and sighed when he realized that both of the other men not only knew but had been staying in her house. He is dead last in the race for her heart but he is merely hoping that he can remain a blip on the radar. He isn't looking to marry her or even date her but he would like to get to know her and he thinks that that has to count for something.

Violet marches alongside Cooper who is sluggishly lifting his feet and scuffing his shoes against the tile. She cringes when they pass a patient on a gurney because she isn't really all that fond of hospitals. She has her reasons for being a little awkward and insecure in them and they all lie safely rooted in her neurosis. Cooper on the other hand barely notices that they are in a hospital. He is mentally running down the list of things that could help out his new friend and aide her in a time of need. He isn't the best with patients over 12 but if there is one thing he is good at it is taking care of friends.

Naomi grimaces as she finally realizes the outfit she is adorned with. She pulls her black coat around her purple pajamas a little tighter and almost slips in the middle of the hall when one of the fuzzy slippers decides to lose traction. Her breath gets stuck in her throat somewhere as they approach the hall lined with doors and Charlotte's pace begins to linger. She finds her stomach in her throat as she remembers watching the gallery one week ago. Who would've thought she would be right back here?

_**-----**_

"She needs her rest. I mean it." Charlotte warns as she leads them into the small ICU room. The sounds fill the air with beeping and buzzing and Mark finds that he can't tear his eyes away from the scene. Her crimson locks are in stark contrast with the starched white linen beneath them and the purplish gown makes her look even paler under the harsh florescent lighting. There is the IV to his left and the heart monitors beeps a steady pace comforting him. The chairs in the corner resemble the disgusting plastic ones in the waiting room and he knows he isn't going to be getting much sleep tonight. He watches silently as Charlotte announces that she has visitors and that they need to leave soon.

Addison blinks groggily. She is vaguely aware of her location as she hears the machinery next to her. She feels light headed and relaxed for the first time in weeks. Her eyes flutter and fight to stay open as she watches the group emerge. She scans the room and finds Sam mysteriously missing. She tires to open her mouth to speak but finds her throat parched and aching. Naomi quickly pushes her way out of the cluster and comes and takes her hand. Addison feels the warmth against her exhausted skin and forces herself to inhale as Derek takes her other hand and lightly begins stroking it with his thumb.

There were times when Derek wanted nothing more than to watch his wife sleep. Addison is a peaceful sleeper. She doesn't snore, toss, turn, or kick. She just is. A simple being for however many hours her schedule will allow. He used to enjoy watching her chest rise and fall slowly as the seconds in whatever on call room ticked away. She calms him in that way and he can't now, as he watches her fight sleep, imagine a time when he ever wanted to give that up. He quickly lifts her IV taped hand up and lightly kisses it. "Go to sleep Addie, everything is ok."

She hears Derek murmur some reassuring words but it isn't who she wants to hear that from. She tears her hand from Naomi's scared grip and reaches out for Mark. She knows that he found her on the bathroom floor. She knows that he pulled her into his chest trying to keep her warm and safe. She doesn't remember the aftermath and it hasn't been fully explained to her yet so she is still a little frightened by the lights and sounds. Stretching her hand out farther Mark finally peels his eyes from the floor and takes a hint.

"Mark, she wants you." Naomi offer as he is slow to pick up his feet.

"No…it's ok. I'll go, she needs to sleep." He starts for the door as the rest of them watch him uncharacteristically fold out of the situation.

"Mark!" She etches out, her throat still raw from the sobbing that took place yesterday.

He stops and turns back to her. He suddenly feels a wave of guilt as he realizes that he was running away from her again. He lifts his feet hastily pushing through Violet and Cooper to take the seat next to her bed. He pulls her hand from the sheets that her fingers were clutching and clings to them for dear life. "Sleep." Is all he can get out before she stops him.

She grins at the two men on either side of her bed. The memories flood through her of how it was always this way. Two against one. It never mattered which two against which one, those were just the odds. Her smile dissipates rapidly as she manages to choke out, "I suck at life." She feels the tears threaten the edge of her eyes again and immediately knows that whatever they gave her wasn't strong enough. Her breathing quickens as the monitor beeps more briskly behind her announcing that a sharp increase has happened.

Mark watches as the numbers next to Derek increase and their eyes meet momentarily nominating him to be the one to calm her again. "You do not suck at life Addison. It's just hard and you need some rest. Your body needs rest so close your eyes and try to relax."

"I can't." She whispers as her eyes catch Pete, Violet, and Cooper. The once intimate setting of her room suddenly feels flooded by strangers and she can't say the things she really feels.

"Sure you can. Just close your eyes and give it a try. I have it on very good authority that you are an excellent sleeper." Derek adds as he tears his eyes away from the machine next to him.

"I'm not. I don't sleep." Addison mutters as she begins to hyperventilate. Her breathing becomes raged and forced and Derek is about to either dig through the drawers in search of something to calm her or hit the nurse's button when Mark stands. He shrugs off his coat and toes out of his shoes before moving around to Derek's side of the bed. She becomes increasingly distraught when he drops her hand but as soon as he climbs in beside her and helps her roll onto her side she begins breathing regularly.

She nuzzles herself back against his firm chest as he wraps his arms around her waist lightly. The monitors suggest stability and Derek pulls the extra blanket from the chair next to him and drapes it over the couple on the bed. He isn't really keen on this whole idea but it is working. It keeps her calm which in turn keeps his child calm so he is eternally grateful to Mark. He watches as Addison pulls his arm around her tighter and he blows the hair away from his face when she scoots back even farther burying him in a sea of red. Naomi helps by gathering the locks and moving them upward so Mark can see again. She wiggles again this time entangling her legs in his searching for some sort of contact to feel alive. She needs to have every surface of her skin touching something to know she is still flourishing.

"Addison no." Mark says as the group heads out the door with their goodbyes and promises of visiting tomorrow. Derek says that he will bring the girls by when she is ready to be discharged and they can all go do something if she feels up to it and she nods briefly before pushing back once again.

"Addie, stop. We are going to fall off the bed. It's hardly big enough to begin with and when the nurses find us I am certain there will be hell to pay."

"Don't care." She returns as she pulls his hand back pushing across her abdomen tightly.

Mark squirms his arm out from underneath her side and pulls it back lightly stroking her hip. "Sleep."

"Tighter. Hold me tighter." She urges.

He relents and puts his arm back across her but refuses to pull back. "No, hold me like you are never going to let go." She tries again, waiting for him to understand her half sedated rant. She does it herself and holds her arm over his so as to not allow movement.

"No, I'm going to hurt you."

"You can't hurt me. I don't feel anything anymore." She mutters as her eyes haphazardly draw closed and her breathing evens out. He leaves his hand and watches as she struggles to sleep through the drug induced haze. His focus is solely on her as she winces and the tears roll down her face. He thinks better of removing his hand and lets her ride out the waves of whatever nightmare is plaguing her. She involuntarily whimpers and his heart shatters when he realizes that this will be their reality for a while and no one should go through this alone. He settles himself and tries to get used to the idea of being crushed against her as she literally fights for her life.

**_-----_**

"No!, No!, No!" Wails Elianna as Sam attempts to get her and her sister in the front door. Derek dropped them off at the entrance of the hospital and headed off to find parking in the great obis.

"Elianna, you want to see your Aunt right? We need to go get her so we can go home." Sam tries again.

"No!" She screams causing people to look at the small group like she is taking a flogging. If Sam believed in punishing other people's children he most certainly would have taken the situation into his own hands but as it sits he is stuck with two hollering children.

"Fine you want to sit out here on the curb all alone, be my guest." Sam states trying something akin to reverse psychology. It used to work on Maya all the time if he remembers correctly, although Naomi was always better at it.

What he didn't preempt was Elianna's familiarity with reverse psychology, and really he should have, he'd met Addison's sister once or twice, and he should have considered that the child bore no similarities to the calm and placid Maya in his memories.

So instead of a whimpering defeat, she breaks into full blown hysterics using lung power that Sam has never seen before and chokes out words he can't understand. He stops moving forward, placing Kennedy in her car seat next to him as he reaches down as scoops her off the ground. He muffles her mouth by placing it over his shoulder and tries to soothe her by rubbing her small school uniform adorned back. "Shh…" He urges. He carefully reaches down next to him trying not to topple over and grabs Kennedy from the ground and begins taking steps forward. To her credit, Ellie, can sense the movement and begins thrashing relentlessly against his torso so he must stop again.

She wiggles out of his grip, straightens her skirt, and then crumples onto the ground. All of this display in time for Derek to witness it. He jogs over to her and tells Sam to go ahead and go in while he deals with whatever this temper tantrum is about. He pauses in the middle of the walkway and decides to take a seat next to her. People eye them hesitantly as they enter the doors. "So, Ellie you want to wait out here I take it?"

"I'm not going in there." She points to the brick edifice of the building. She returns to clinging to her knees and crying quietly.

"Ok, why?" He asks as he grows moderately impatient. He is supposed to be in there with Addison, not Sam.

"I'm not!" She screams back at him.

There's no sense or logic to the argument in his mind so he stands taking her with him and holds tightly as she kicks when they enter the doors. The elevator ride is laden with her screams and ineffectual punches to his back. Nurses, doctors, and patients stare with intensity and concoct stories that have nothing to do with the matter at hand. He steps through the door, setting her down on the edge of Addison's bed.

Upon seeing her Aunt mere inches away and still breathing Ellie scurries to the top of the bed and buries her head under the older woman's and sobs uncontrollably. "Addie!"

"What did you do to her?" Addison asks concerned as she attempts to talk over her niece.

"Nothing. She won't stop." The instant he says it she draws quiet and Addison eyes her former husband suspiciously.

Sam catches the vibe and attempts to reassure the group, "To be fair, he didn't do anything. She did the same thing to me."

Mark returns to the room to find the whole gang there. His shirt and pants are insanely wrinkled from having spent the night clutched to Addison. She woke up repeatedly white as a ghost and feeling around for him. He never left her side and by the twentieth or so time she burst to life she curbed the tears and merely snuggled back a little further. His back aches from where she had pressed him into the railing on the bed and he reeks of the perpetual hospital smell and her lingering perfume.

"Ready?" He asks as he pushes the wheelchair forward. The staff eventually agreed to allow him to push her out of the doors because after the fit this morning (that led to an intern in tears after she couldn't draw blood and Mark had to take over) he knew there was no way she was going to let anyone else help her out. He grins as she releases Elianna who has passed out against her and hands her off to Derek. She rolls her eyes at the chair but relents without a fight and settles herself so they can get going as soon as possible. Staying in the hospital was absolutely exhausting for her and she wants nothing more than to get home and relax on the couch with the girls.

**_-----_**

"We should talk." Addison whispers as she places the diamond studs in her ears.

Mark watches as she runs a brush through her hair before twisting it upward and pinning it to the back of her head. He finds it funny that she is getting so dressed up for a five year olds birthday party but shrugs it off because she is acting semi-normal. They spent the rest of the day that she returned from the hospital lounging around while various people stopped in and out. Nightfall came quickly and he found that they were all too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

"I can't believe Naomi pulled this together on such short notice. Have you seen her down there with her friends? You can't even tell she had a bad day yesterday." Mark states as she emerges from the bathroom bejeweled and ready minus a shirt. She toes to the closet and he watches her nearly half naked form disappear for a few moments before emerging with something black to match her skirt. His mouth waters as he watches her contemplate things in her full length mirror. "I..uh. Addison?"

"Huh?" She replies without turning around.

"It's a birthday party. All black is a little formal don't you think?" He distinctly recalls the people downstairs. Aside from every little girl in some form of fluffy dress and tiara, people are dressed casually and mingling with one another. He looks down at his jeans and bare feet when she disappears into the closet again. She returns wearing a light blue dress and pulls the clip from the back of her head shaking her tresses free.

"I guess you are right. I'm so bad at this stuff." She whispers as she takes a seat next to him pulling on her heels. "I thought I would be good at it. I thought it would be a natural instinct, you know? Kennedy hates me, like actually hates I think and Elianna tolerates me but I swear I could ship her off with Naomi and she would live happily ever after."

"You are learning. You are better than me and these aren't your kids anyway. You don't always have to do everything perfectly." He states as she folds her hands in her lap and pulls at the flowing fabric.

"I'm sorry."

He isn't really sure what she is talking about and pauses momentarily to let her continue.  
"About the night in the bathroom. I know better…I just, can't. I couldn't deal and I'm sorry I scared everyone. I'm okay now."

He tips her head up with his finger and gently wraps his hand around hers to get her attention. "You are not okay Addison."

"I am, I-"

"No, you aren't. And that is fine with me. You are allowed to be a wreck sometimes and you have all of us. We are going to get through this- together."

"Ok." She replies tentatively as he smoothes his thumb along her jaw line. Sometimes she wishes that he would stop saying the right things and say how he felt. She needs someone to just yell so she can yell back. She hopes for a fight so as to press any other feeling upon her dull soul other than.

He pulls her up and smiles. "Let's go have a princess birthday."

"Yeah." She mutters in response growing weary that nothing is being accomplished.

"Don't get too wild on me now, you know how attracted I am to party girls." He winks as he leaves her in the room to follow.

**_-----_**

"One helluva a party Addison." Pete mocks as he steps in beside her. The number of people is slowly dwindling down and the festivities are drawing to an end. Addison has had it about up to here with screaming children running through her house and she wants nothing more than to clear the place so she can get Kennedy to sleep and get ready for Monday.

"Thanks." She grins. "Naomi did most of it though."

"Well, it is all in the hostess." Pete returns as he sips on the red punch in a funky designer cup.

"I'm gonna get you!" Cooper yells as he goes tearing through the house after Elianna and one of her little friends.

"Oh, he is so immature." Violet notes as she joins her co-workers.

"You like it." Pete quips as he heads in the other direction. They had agreed previously to give Addison alone time with Violet whenever possible in the off chance she may feel like sharing.

"So…how are things?" Violet asks carefully toeing the line in between professionalism and friendship.

"Good, thanks." Addison smiles a wide smile and although clearly fake there are only a few people in the room that could spot it as such.

She grants goodbyes to parents and exhausted princesses as they make their way from the door. She shakes hands, gives awkward hugs, and promises to keep Ellie in touch with everyone. As the night winds on she finds herself alone again with only Derek, Mark, and the girls. Addison begins the cleaning procedure of the destroyed house as Derek approaches the doorway with Kennedy in his arms.

He smiles kindly as he starts to help her one hand. He pitches cups into the plastic bag she holds open and watches the way she moves about the kitchen swiftly. She has spent the better part of the day in a façade and he is waiting it out until she comes down from the high. They clean in a comfortable silence, much unlike the ones of the years past that suffocated the rooms they occupied. He bounces Kennedy slightly and remarks, "We are going to have one of these pretty soon."

She looks up surprised as he strokes the red fuzz on top of the baby's head. Elianna had decided to like her sister momentarily enough today to announce that she must be dressed to impress and helped pick out her outfit of pale yellow dress and socks to match. "Yeah."

He steps in closer trying to attract her attention. "I leave on Monday."

"I know." She replies before moving to the table to clear the paper plates and pink forks.

"We don't have to talk right now about this, if you don't want to, I understand…but I was umm…well I was thinking that maybe you should-"

She sighs exasperatedly waiting for him to answer her. "Just say it Derek."

"I think you should move back to Seattle." He replies softly before moving towards her again.

"But…I, no. No, I can't"

He takes the opportunity of the situation provided and steps forward lightly placing his lips up on hers. It takes her a few seconds to relax and return the favor and they continue until the infant between them signals she is ready to be fed. Addison steps back and shakes her head at herself. She knows what she should've done when he kissed her, and she knows what she did do. She searched, in vain, for a feeling again and came up short. He's a good kisser, a great kisser even and he knows exactly what she likes but the spark just isn't there anymore no matter how hard she tries to feel it.

It would be simple. It borders on being ideal for them to get back together. For them to have this story of how they got back together. It would be so easy to turn her back on how her heart feels again and run away with the right guy; the perfect guy. Deep down she knows that being with Derek isn't what she wants but she can't deny that life would be a whole lot easier for both of them if she just gave in. "What was that?" She asks as he searches the kitchen for a clean bottle.

"I meant it when I said I missed you. Come home Addison. Bring the girls and come home. We can do this." Derek says as he rifles through an almost empty drawer. He has thought it through countless times in the last few days and this is the only solution he has. He could be with Addison, hell he could probably even love her again if she would let him. This is his answer to the problem; the only one he has got.

**_-----_**

Of course Mark had to catch the tail end of that conversation when he appeared in the doorway. It simply wouldn't be his life if he couldn't be tortured by hearing his best friend tempt the love of his life. He knows that the possibility that she might pick him is very real. He gets how effortless that switch could be. She would move back up there or he would move down here, although the thought of Derek in L.A. makes him laugh he still feels the anguish of the issue. He really wishes that she wasn't pregnant. It would be such an uncomplicated situation if she weren't. He almost has no rights here, certainly not where another man's child is involved, and he feels as though he may be fighting for a lost cause. He stands a little straighter and enters the kitchen knowing that he has to fight because the other option, doing nothing and watching her walk away again, simply isn't good enough anymore.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

After a full night of partying and the emotional torment of acting normal when she feels like her world is crumbling down Addison finds herself awake as ever lying in bed. She pulls the cream colored comforter a little closer to her chest and battles back against the tears. In an effort to save face and not be the sad crying girl in the corner she adamantly refuses to bawl. She mentally switches off the tear ducts as her memories dance through the night. Into the blacked out screen in front of her play the images of better times. Not necessarily less complicated but better. She thinks of her sister and when they were young. She remarks over how much Ellie reminds her of herself at that age and wonders how in the world Reagan could deal with her day in and day out.

"Addie?" The small voice calls as the light from the hallway flutters inward. Addison chose to have Mark in the guest room and Derek on the couch for this reason. She got one night of being held and now it was time to be strong again.

"On the bed." She replies as Ellie tip toes in and climbs onto the bed. She wiggles to get under the covers and settles herself against Addison's chest.

As her Aunt, Addison feels the obligation to be kind and caring towards the child but as a human her heart breaks whenever Elianna curls up on her. She attempts to quell the sobs that plague her chest as she breathily asks what is wrong.

"Daddy didn't come today." Is the answer she gets and she really isn't sure if Naomi thought to invite Pierce. She would like to think that if asked to come to his daughter's birthday party he would attend but she hasn't had any contact with him in days.

"No." She whispers as she feels the hot saline liquid begin to soak her tank top.

"He hates me."

Addison is quick to jump on that statement because even if it is true no one should have to think that their parents hate them at this age. "No, he doesn't. I don't think he knew that the party was today."

"He hates me because of her." She sniffles and points to the basinet next to bed that contains her sister.

"Ellie." Addison warns but is more interested in what she has to say.

"He doesn't like her so we had to come here. If she wasn't there then I could've stayed and Mommy wouldn't be with the angels."

"Your father loves you both very much." She strokes the back of her head trying to think of something to say about her mother but is met with resistance of tears and the tightening of her own throat.

"I miss Mommy and Daddy! I want to go home." She yells as her voice gains its strength back.

Addison is too quick to stop her tongue and starts with, "Me too."

"Stupid baby sisters."

"Don't say that."

"Why?" She asks as she wipes her tears away and scoots over resting her head against the pillow. Addison hasn't spent a whole lot of time with five year olds but has a feeling that that question gets asked a lot.

"Because I said so. It makes me sad when you say that and it makes her sad too."

"She is always sad. All she does is cry." Ellie whimpers.

"She isn't sad when she cries. It means she needs something."

"She needs a lot."

"She's a baby, that's how it works. I bet when you were just a baby you did the same thing." Addison replies as she tries to talk her niece into not hating her sister. She rolls over on her side and lightly places her arm around the child next to her praying for sleep.

Ellie turns and cuddles back into her chest relishing the feeling of touch by someone. She has been glossed over in this whole experience and left to fight on her own a lot. For whatever reason she takes the available snuggle time and tries to forget her parents and how they feel as though they have been permanently removed from her life.

**_-----_**

Two hours later after a shared beer and limited talk time with Derek, Mark makes his way up the stairs. He peers in Ellie's room to make sure she is sleeping and finds the night light and no one else. He moves down the hall and checks his pseudo room which is also empty. He takes the final steps toward the master suite and gently pushes the handle forward. He grins as he finds Addison with a kid under her chin, their red hair intermingling on the pillows behind them and the comforter pulled tight. He steps forward admiring the scene when he sees her put her finger to her mouth and instructs him to be quiet.

"Sleep." He whispers as he heads for the door.

"I can't." She calls back as he grabs the handle of the white door.

He turns on his heels knowing exactly what to do but fears that she will either push him away or he'll end up on the floor because there is no bar to hold him on the bed. He strips his pants, leaving his shirt on and crawls in behind her. "Better?" He whispers into her left ear.

She nods and instinctively snuggles farther back into him, her toes finding his calves and digging their way into a tangled mess. "Don't push hard tonight, we'll fall off." He warns as she reaches for his arm. She nods again and grins when she feels him hold her a little tighter then he would last night. His other arm comes to rest under her neck in the mess of auburn tresses. He plays with whoever's hair for roughly an hour while he waits for her to drift off. When he hears the small sniffles stop and her breath even out he closes his eyes and nods off.

It isn't much. Holding someone until they sleep isn't a lot, it isn't even the best he has to offer but it is something. He would be completely content with lying there for the rest of his life if it could ease her pain in anyway. He knows there is no easy solution, no quick fix, for the loss of someone close. Watching her struggle is hard but he knows that if he can stand by her through this then maybe they will get their chance. All he has to do is wait it out.

**_-----_**

* * *


	17. Ending starts with answers

A/n: So this ran a lot longer than I expected and took a completely different course than I had intended. We will get to the things I wanted to next post apparently because this wrote itself. Thanks to my fabulous beta and to everyone who comments! Your support keeps me going forward with this monster. Enjoy-

**_-----_**  
**_When you try to see, we'll watch you_**  
**_When you try to leave, we'll keep you_**  
**_When you should be dreaming, we'll wake you_**  
**_But don't scream, we'll make you swallow your words_**

****

**_How ending starts_**  
**_Ending starts with answers._**  
_-Metric, "Ending Starts"_  
**_-----_**

"You aren't working today." Naomi reminds her as Addison steps foot off the elevator. She quickly shoved Derek into the airport terminal with his luggage and then dropped off Elianna and now she wants nothing more than the good distraction of work.

"I have patients. I have a schedule." She reminds her best friend as she steps past her to grab her charts off her desk.

"Dell can move them. Dell will move them." She spins around and smiles sweetly at the younger man behind the desk. "Will you push her appointments, please?"

"Can do." He replies as he begins clicking away on the keyboard.

"Dell, do not cancel my appointments. They are mine and I will see them if I want to."

"Ok." He pauses and looks back to Naomi.

"Don't listen to her. I own this practice and I hired her. Cancel them." Naomi affirms as she glares at her subordinate.

"Naomi, can we have a word?" Addison asks as she tightly grabs her friend by the arm and leads her into her office. She shuts the door softly, drops the arm roughly and for good measure raises her voice. "What do you think you are doing?"

"My job."

"Well, I'm trying to do mine. You want me to bill hours? I can't do it unless I am in the office!"

"Don't fight me on this. Please do not fight me. I have already had on hell of a morning and the last thing I need from you is a shouting match. Go home." Naomi returns as she recounts her morning full of spilt coffee and fights with her tween daughter.

Addison stomps her heel into the floor and clenches her jaw. "You want me to go home and do what? I don't do well with down time."

"Who has Kennedy?" Naomi asks as she watches her friend toss her overly expensive purse onto her wooden desk.

"Mark."

Naomi ignores the pressing issue of the fact that her not-so intelligent friend just left Mark Sloan with an infant and asks, "He isn't working today?"

"He has a surgery at two and a consult afterwards but nothing for the morning he said."

"He isn't coming in for the morning meeting?"

"I guess not. Are you going to give me my patients or do we have to fight?" Addison asks impatiently as she eyes the files in her friend's hand.

"You aren't working today. You can stay here, read whatever you want, and call whoever but you aren't seeing patients."

"Quarantine? You are treating me like I am some sort of danger to society!" Addison shouts as she realizes she is battling back against something she will never win.

"You are a danger to yourself." Naomi replies icily as she tromps out of the room and heads for her own office. She isn't big on fighting, especially with her best friend but she finds that no one is telling Addison how it is and sometimes all someone needs is a swift kick in the ass to realize their problems.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Addison paces impatiently as she watches the morning meeting progress without her. She twists her heel and steps forward with her arms crossed over her chest. She stares into the window and receives an innocent smile from Pete after Naomi literally shut the door in her face. It isn't locked and she knows she could walk right in there and demand to be a part of what she should be helping in. But over all she knows, deep down, that Naomi is right and she is a danger to herself and to everyone around her in some way or another.

She walks and spins so much that there should probably be a hole in the carpet. She fights to hear their remarks and struggles to make sense of the happenings of the meeting until the sudden wave of nausea forces her away. She stops the sudden motion, drops her hands, and heads off full speed. It doesn't go unnoticed by Pete who hastily excuses himself from their meeting and finds himself next to her on the floor of the women's room.

As soon as she is able to stop heaving Addison turns behind her and spits, "What are you doing in here?"

"You looked like you needed help." He remarks as he releases the curls he had been holding. He hasn't seen the curly hair before and the slight bounce it gives when she trots in her heels is almost enough to send him over the edge.

"I don't need help from anyone, least of all you." She reminds him as she stands and straightens out her skirt. She proceeds to head to her office to grab the toothbrush she keeps stashed for all of these lovely occurrences.

"Addison." He calls out as soon as she grabs the door handle.

"What?" She answers a little more than irritated. It is still early and already her day has been more than ruined.

"It's okay to need help sometimes. You can trust me. I'm not going to hurt you." Pete affirms trying to sound as earnest as possible while she storms out.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Hey Meredith!" Derek calls out as soon as he steps out of the notorious Seattle Grace elevators and onto the third floor.

"Derek." She nods before turning back to Callie who is handing out the weekly assignments.

**_-----_**

Right now, as the squirming infant screams her lungs out, Mark isn't exactly sure what the hell he was thinking this morning when he asked Addison to leave her with him. He assured her everything was fine and she was so out of it that she not only believed him but managed to forget half of her stuff while heading out the door.

He gave a pleasant goodbye to Derek, more than welcome to send the evil man on his way, and settled down with the paper and a cup of steaming coffee. That whole scene lasted about five minutes and for the last hour he has been attempting, in vain mind you, to calm the child that he is hesitantly holding to his chest. He remembers something about rocking side to side like Addison does but it has no effect. He has attempted changing her (which was a half hour disaster), tried feeding her (but she refused to eat), and he tried playing with her (however one does that with a two week old baby he is unsure). So now he is digging into the pocket of his black slacks trying to fish out his cell phone with his free hand. As he dials her number (which he has had memorized for the last ten years), he starts to seriously debate trying to be with her. It is painfully obvious to him that he is an utter failure with children, especially the younger ones, and being with Addison has now become being with Addison + a baby + these two kids who hate him. She has got complicated all on her own and when he hears her cell phone ringing behind him he contemplates just walking out of the house and never looking back.

**_-----_**

After much persuasion by every member of the clinic Violet finds herself heading for Addison's office. It isn't that she isn't willing to do her part, able to lend an ear, it is that she is always met by such resistance that she feels like failure. Violet does not appreciate people who can make her feel bad about herself and her chosen profession but that is exactly what this woman manages to do. She reasons and says that the red-headed surgeon probably has no idea what kind of a conceited air she puts off but nothing makes her feel any better as she makes her way past the door without knocking.

"Addison?" She questions as she marches forward.

Addison quickly closes the file she has read through seventy times in the last two weeks, her sister's. She should give it back to the hospital at some point but no one is asking for it yet and her eyes won't stop seeing what her heart wants to believe. "Hmm?"

Violet pauses. She opens her mouth the start and then quickly stops herself. Beating around the bush isn't really something she likes to do especially with her patients. "Listen, let's cut to the chase. I was sent in here to listen to you…to force you to talk to me and apparently I'm not allowed to leave and you aren't allowed to work until that happens. So just say something so I can get back to my patients."

Addison purses her lips completely unwilling to divulge the problems of her personal life with the woman in front of her. It isn't that she couldn't use a really good round therapy, because she knows she could, it is that this is a co-worker and she is tired of messy work place situations. So instead she stands, straightening her skirt, and slide the chart forward.

"What?" Violet asks as she grabs it.

"They could have saved her." And with that Addison grabs her purse and storms out of her own office leaving the curly headed therapist with how to figure out a chart.

She passes Naomi on her way to the elevator and stops briefly. "You win. I'm going home."

Her friend, however, will not let the victory smile out of its box and instead wraps her arms around her counterpart. She hopes that this is the beginning that Addison will finally come to terms with everything and cope miraculously as only she can so that they can return to semi-normal. "Thank you." She whispers into her ear and suddenly feels that her hug is one sided and Addison's arms are still hanging loosely by her sides. "Addie-"

"Shut up Nae, just shut up." Addison remarks before heading to the elevator.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Shh…little baby." Mark repeats as he rocks back and forth on his feet. A solid two hours after Addison left the house and he is no closer to calming her than he was before. He thought, although he was incorrect, that these sorts of things had to pass out eventually when they got tired. "Come on Kennedy, don't make me sing. I hate singing." He takes to pacing around the living room hoping that the changing scenery will wear her out (it doesn't).

He thinks through a mental list of songs but can only come up with the tune to _London Calling_ as he opens his mouth. "The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in. Meltdown expected-" He freezes mid melody as he hears the front door close. He watches as Addison kicks her heels against the wall and drops her purse on the end table near the door.

"Please tell me you weren't singing _The Clash_ to her." She remarks as she presses forward into the kitchen.

He grins and then suddenly realizes that the crying has ceased, even through his tone deaf rant, and quickly places Kennedy in the designated baby area of the living room. "I couldn't think of anything else. She has been crying since you left….. I wasn't going to sing anything by _Tom Petty_ and you like _The Clash_."

"Do not."

"Right. I distinctly remember you as the only girl I ever met who was into the 1970's punk scene."

She rolls her eyes and quashes the conversation as she walks toward the kitchen. Perhaps if he had taken the time to get to know any other girl he would have found one who like similar music but that isn't for her to say aloud.

"Where are you doing home?" He asks as he follows behind her.

"I was sent home because apparently I am a danger to myself and the rest of society so I'm going to clean." She halts in the doorway when she sees the flowers and cards that are crowding the kitchen counters and table. Most of them are in no way related to the birthday party and she is absolutely sick of the reminders. Picking up her bare feet she moves toward the cabinet to grab a spare trash bag.

"The house is clean, well mostly clean." He offers but pauses when she bends over to open the cabinet. If staring was an Olympic sport he would be a gold medalist.

"I have to do something, ok? Are you going to stand there and yell at me about my life choices or are you going to help because I don't need this conversation right now…I just don't. So if you aren't going to help then see yourself to the door. I have things to do." She finishes off a little more frazzled than angry but her point is still there.

"I want to help." He ventures out cautiously as he takes a step closer. "You okay?"

"I'm great." She says as she forces wood polish in to his hand with a fake smile.

"I'm dusting?"

"Have fun. Don't forget the bedrooms." He plods off scowling and Addison takes a seat at the table staring at the pooling mail in front of her. She begins opening the stacks slowly and when she realizes that they are all sympathy cards she quickly sweeps the whole pile off the table with her arm and into the trash bag. It's not that it isn't a nice gesture, and actually appropriate protocol to send a card full of uplifting inspiration, it's that all the cards make her want to do is cry and the only thing she actually wants to do is forget.

She steps over to the counter inadvertently knocking a vase into the sink and forcing it to shatter. She watches as the food treated water drains away and the shards of glass cloud the metal rim. And for the first time in weeks it's a real smile that leaves her lips because watching something other than herself break is gloriously satisfying. Spending a few more moments watching the glass dance in the sunlight she carefully picks the flowers up and shakes them off intent on finding a new home for them to reside in. Instead she finds herself throwing them in the garbage bag next to her and before she can stop herself another vase "slips" off the windowsill and crashes into the sink. A fragment of sharp pink glass catches her forearm and she realizes that she is probably bleeding but doesn't care in the slightest. She can't feel it.

She continues on with her own little sacrifice of the vases and the death lilies, carnations, mixed bouquets, and morbidly red roses that once lived. She grins as she stares intently at all of the intermingling pieces of vase in the sink. She is on the edge, the cusp of feeling something other than insane depression and grief. She's so close she can taste it but she is out of vases and then suddenly realizes there is a voice behind her and then there are hands on her hips and she twists in his arms.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Can you hear me? Addison?" Mark asks worriedly as he watches her spin around. He has been there for a few minutes watching her little display and was almost afraid to disturb her until she was done.

Before thinking can take place she crashes her lips into Mark in a rough kiss. She fights to dominate and wedges her tongue into his mouth when he goes to pull back. He reciprocates for whatever reason and she finds her hand working its way toward his belt. She tugs, intent on getting her sense of feeling back, even if she has to sleep with Mark to prove it is still alive. Giving up on the belt she instead reaches for the front of his pants and is pleasantly surprised to find him already aroused.

He isn't sure why she is doing this, hell he isn't sure why he is letting her but then his brain switches off and pushes her back up against the counter as his hands make quick work of the buttons on her blouse. She takes three steps to the right, narrowly missing the glass that has spilled over onto the floor and hops up onto the counter pulling Mark by his collar. His fingers tease her nipples through the lace of her bra while she gasps and becomes more intent on getting his pants off. Their mouths meet repeatedly until she has to break away for air and then she is pushing his slacks to the floor with her feet that dangle off the counter.

He moves closer to situate himself and realizes that she had already hiked her skirt up to help the progression. His hands find her hair and his mouth her neck as she moans into his shoulder. She knows that she is using him, but she needs this. She needs the thirty seconds to five minutes of orgasmic pleasure that only Mark can bring in order to feel something. She is at her wits end with things to try and this is all she has got left. Growing impatient she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him forward. He obliges, more than happy to reciprocate, because he has been waiting months for this and isn't going to question anything until it is over and he feels horrible.

He thrusts slowly at first but finds her squirming and anxious and then picks up his pace. He returns his mouth to her neck as he feels her begin to clamp down around him. Apparently it has been awhile for both of them and he feels himself grow nearer with every thrust. He reaches to the counter to tangle his fingers with hers and ends up grabbing her wrist instead when she lets out a long moan. He pulls back feeling something wet on his fingers and glances down as his mouth moves from her neck to the special place along her collarbone. His eyes open in horror as he sees his fingertips covered in blood and he stops immediately.

"What are you doing?" She gasps breathlessly.

He steps back and slides out of her before either one can hit a climax. "You're bleeding." He reaches to grab her wrists and flips them both over to reveal the small pool of blood next to where her right hand was resting. "You're bleeding a lot, what happened?" He steps closer again, completely turned off and begins to inspect her wound.

"Nothing." She urges him forward again and begins kissing behind his left ear. "Can we finish and then get to that?" She asks when he refuses to respond.

"No! Addison you need stitches. Damn it. What is wrong with you?" He grabs his pants and boxers form around his knees and pulls them up hastily securing them.

She pulls her hand out of his grasp to look at the cut. She hadn't noticed the sensation of blood trickling down her hand while she was on the counter; she was too busy. Immediately feeling stupid for the whole scene she stands up next to him and hangs her head. He cups her cheeks lifting her face upward and then kisses her gently.

"Go get your shoes. I'll get the baby."

"Why?"

"I don't have a suture kit handy, do you?"

"No." She scoffs as she heads out of the room to find her purse. Stupid vase throwing she thinks as they enter the car. This will be a fun story to explain to everyone. The car ride is completely silent between them, both lost in their own little world as she applies pressure to the cut and he focuses on the road. Kennedy screams to her heart's content and it leaves Addison so frustrated that after the third stoplight she is crying right along with her.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Where are you going?" Addison whispers as she brushes her tears away with the back of her hand. She has spent the greater portion of the last ten minutes thinking about how idiotic the last thirty have been. Maybe she is a danger to herself.

"Work, no sense in going in-"

She cuts him off quickly, her tone finding its way back into her throat, "We aren't going to the clinic. I am not proving Naomi right."

"You want me to take you to the ER?" He questions turning his head to her as they hit a red light.

"You can drive wherever you want but I reserve the right not to enter the building."

Mark rolls his eyes and changes the route in his head so as to not back track. "Fine." He growls as he hits the gas pedal and they speed off into a completely different direction than the one he had planned.

**_-----_**

"Oh, Montgomery. Two times in one week, to what do we owe the great pleasure?" Charlotte smirks as she catches sight of Addison, her male counterpart and the infant rushing into one of her trauma bays.

Addison glares and opens her mouth to speak but Mark cuts her short, "Just an accident. I need to suture her and clean out the wound but we will be out of your hair shortly." He disappears out of the room to find the necessary supplies in a hospital he is not quite familiar with yet.

"I never pegged you as a cutter. I mean aside from the surgeon thing." Charlotte snickers as she flips through a chart.

"Don't you have something that you should be doing?"

"Nope. Just sitting in with one of our new surgeon's to observe his skill. Sounds like my job." She remarks as she continues jotting things down.

"You knew." Addison aches out as she watches the younger woman work.

"Knew what? I'm a busy woman, no time for games."

"You knew that I would read through that chart. You knew what I would see and you gave it to me anyway. That was brave of you."

"It wasn't brave. We were right, I am certain you can agree there from a professional stand point."

"No, no. Not from any stand point. You had a chance, a shot to save both of them and you took the easy way out." Addison returns as Charlotte drops her pen a little more than intrigued.

"First of all I should remind you that my hand wasn't anywhere on that scalpel, if you have a problem there take it up with Sevelechek, but more importantly are you going to sit there and honestly tell me that you wouldn't have done the same thing?"

"I would've taken my chances."

"You don't seem like a risk taker Montgomery. You seem like a smart woman. I thought you would get this."

"Well, I don't and I take risks in the OR so I can avoid taking them outside in the real world."

"Yeah, your wrist screams that that is the case." Charlotte picks up her pen victoriously as Addison grows self-conscious and holds her arm a little tighter to her chest.

"You have no idea what you are talking about. You don't know me; you don't know my life so stop making assumptions. Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?" Addison asks as her voice grows in anger.

"Addie, god could you quell the hatred for ten seconds so I can fix your arm before you lose more blood and end up in a room here again?" Mark questions as he re-enters the room to find the two bickering over something. Addison is literally exhausting him and the car ride filled with the screaming child did nothing to help his patience. He takes her arm and unwraps the cloth around it to reveal that there are still chunks of glass stuck in her skin. Digging glass out of flesh was never his favorite part of the doctor thing and he makes quick work of cleaning it and numbing the area. Addison strenuously refuses the numbing agent, citing something about being able to take the pain, but Mark ignores his patient's request for once and begins closing the oozing gap.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

He lets her drive herself home because of his impending surgery and decides that he is thankful for the break from her violent and aggressive attitude. Normally the whole bossy thing is a major turn on, he likes a woman who knows what she wants and can voice it, but she has grown borderline unbearable and he needs a break. He also feels the strong urge to cut and understands where the girl flip out was coming from. Though surgery is compromised of stress and skill it also takes away the outside world. Time stands still in surgery and there is only one thing possible to think about and he is grateful for that.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Arriving back home Addison twists her key in the lock and shuffles inside totting one child and enough things to fill a room with. She had forgotten the power of retail therapy and apparently so had her credit card. She tosses the bags aside and vows to get the shoes after a good ten minute rest and the immediate purging of her non-existent stomach contents.

After the trip to the bathroom she avoids the kitchen including the scene that happened earlier and heads for the couch to find Pete lounging. Her heart seized when she saw the back of his head and she jumped a little even after she realized it was him. "What are you doing in my house?"

"Mark called Naomi."

"Fucking great." She returns pulling Kennedy from her carrier to see if she needs to be changed.

"Did you just swear?" He looks at her completely flabbergasted.

"I swear."

"Oh really?"

"Shut up Pete and get out of my house." She takes a seat on the chair opposite him and snuggles the infant to her chest silently praying that she bursts into a series of ear piercing screams.

"You look good with kids."

"That's wonderful considering I'm going to have one." The good mood that stemmed from about four pairs of new heels in her trunk quickly turning sour.

"I heard."

"Figures. No one can keep their mouths shut here. It's worse than a hospital."

"Someone is particularly bitter this afternoon."

She grows quiet, knowing that she is at fault, and Pete is being a good friend and just checking in on her like he was asked to and perhaps even out of genuine concern. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. I kind of liked it. How's the arm?" He asks as he stands and walks toward her. Squatting down he brushes the back of Kennedy's head before he moves in for a searing kiss. He pulls back first because her head has nowhere to go and watches as her eyes fill with tears. "Hey now, that wasn't-"

"You kiss me when I am falling apart. I get it. That's your MO. You take advantage of weak girls."

"You are anything but weak. I kissed you because I wanted to and I would be lying if I said you didn't look like you needed it but more importantly I wanted to remind you that I'm still around. I'm still interested. No kid, twenty kids, whatever. It's about you." He grins and finds his coat on the back of the couch. He leaves without giving her the opportunity to respond.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Nightfall finds Addison completely alone with a sullen five year old and a fussy infant. She fixes dinner quickly and forces some of the cereal down her own throat before being questioned by Ellie.

"Mommy never made cereal for dinner." She remarks while stirring her spoon through the Lucky Charms that have started to bleed into the milk looking suspiciously like a ridiculous rainbow.

"Well, I'm not Mommy. I'm Addie and we eat cereal for dinner here, ok?"

"May I be excused?"

"Elianna I'm sorry. I'm tired and tomorrow I will cook something I promise. We'll do something, a girl's night. Just us three."

"Yeah." She replies without the normal smile that inhibits her cheery face.

When Kennedy starts wailing again Addison rapidly gives up the debate. "Ok, fine you can go." She reaches down for the baby when Ellie slides out of her chair and quickly hits the stairs headed toward her newly decorated room. Addison let her pick the theme and they ended up with something akin to so much purple and butterflies that it makes her nauseous just visiting the room.

She tends to her uptight niece and clears the table noting that she and Elianna had probably put down the same amount of food but she isn't in the mood for a talk. Instantly feeling guilty for not wanting to take care of the child she grabs Kennedy again deciding that they all could benefit from an early bedtime. She clicks the light off trying not to think about how much she wants Mark to call or better yet just show up, but fears that she has finally scared him away and comes to terms with the fact that she may as well be on her own right now. Entering the sanctity of her own room she rubs soothing circles on Kennedy's back and thanks god when she can put her to sleep.

She practically leaps from the room grabbing the baby monitor (not that she'll need it but it's just habit now) and finds Ellie's door already cracked and darkened. She knows for a fact that the child isn't tired, and from her experience, rarely volunteers to go to sleep early. Taking her chances she enters and crosses the room with the glowing light provided to find her sleeping soundly with the covers tugged up tight around her chin. A nod to her maternal instincts she places her hand against Ellie's forehead to find it predictably warm. She sighs deeply, taking a seat next to girl, and realizes that this is the one thing she can deal with well. She does sickness; she lives for sickness. Brushing the curls off of her face she quickly presses a kiss to her temple and leaves the room.

**_-----_**

Mark finished his surgery under a clout of the afternoon's happenings. It wasn't supposed to be like that. He wanted this time to be different; he honestly wanted it to mean something and instead they settled for hot counter sex (that wasn't finished and he is a little more than aggravated by that fact). He runs his fingers through his hair after scrubbing out of another successful face lift, wondering if he should bother stopping by her house tonight. His surgery ran late, his consult was moved, and now he is left with a choice.

It'd be simple to pull a classic Mark Sloan and disappear. It would be so damn easy to go to his own house and curl up into the sleeping bag that still lies in his dining room. He shuffles his feet along the tile attempting to reach the locker room before he can be stopped by any one of his new co-workers. He grits his teeth and clenches his jaw when he comes up with his plan. Trying this time to take the harder road and put out some effort he reaches for his phone to call a cab that will drop him off a little further down his street.

**_-----_**

"Addison?" He asks as he slips off his shoes and begins climbing the stairs. He calls her name again after seeing that Elianna is already asleep.

"Here." Comes the voice.

He walks in mid breakdown again. Her fingers are clutching the pillow she is holding in front of her stomach and the blankets are disarranged and flooded by old tissues. He sighs because it seems as though every time he finds her she either yells or cries but he knows that this is the price that must be paid.

Making his way to the bed he pulls her into his lap again and she tugs along the pillow as she tucks her head into the spot between his neck and shoulder, using it as a way to muffle her sobs. He hates, absolutely hates, that when he touches her it gets worse and yet all she wants is to be held. It's such a double edged sword and he wants there to be an easier way. He rubs her back and finds that she is actually trying to say something. Tucking the loose strands of her messy ponytail back behind her ear he whispers, "What?"

"Ellie's sick."

"Ok."

"No, she's sick. Sick and I didn't notice. What kind of doctor am I? I should have my license taken."

"No, Addie. Stop. You are a surgeon first and foremost not an ER doctor or some nurse. Kids get sick; they are little balls of infections. You know that. She probably caught it from some stupid kid on some equally stupid unsanitary playground from that god damn pretentious school."

Next he finds her pointing to the basinet, "And she cried all night. All night Mark! I can't do this. I can't be a mom….I thought I could and I can't. I was wrong, so wrong." She suddenly finds herself way too open and vulnerable for her safety zone but pushes forward divulging all of her deepest secrets, "And I miss her. I miss her so much. I didn't think I could, I would…"

He runs his fingers along her spine as she talks out the problems. More than happy to hear her issues being voiced aloud as opposed to leading to the broken vase/hot sex scenario from earlier he simply listens.

"We hadn't talked in forever and now she's gone. She's dead." She chokes out the last word and finds that she is gasping for breath when his thumbs come up to wipe the tears off her face.

"I know, I know but it's okay. It'll be okay." He grimaces as he says it because nothing is alright and he knows that she will tear it to shreds in a moment but then she doesn't and suddenly she is relaxing against him. Her breathing levels out the tears dry up when he finally looks down. "Addie?"

"I'm tired. I'm so exhausted."

"Well let's sleep and deal with things in the morning."

"Of this. I'm tired of this." She whispers shifting out of his lap and going back to her overly defensive pose.

"Of what? I'm not following."

"Tired of crying. Tired of leaning on you when we are nothing more than strained friends. You shouldn't have to be here, you have a life to be leading and there is no obligation to me anywhere in it. All I do is shut you down and reject you and I'll just do it again when I wake up from this nightmare…. so you should leave."

"You want me to go?"

The answer is no her heart shouts but her brain answers, "Yes." And then immediately follows with a silent 'please don't go'.

He sits back leaning on his hands and contemplates for a few brief moments before replying, "Too bad. Lie down. We are going to sleep. I'm tired too and I can't sleep without you so you will just have to deal with me for awhile until I can buck up and exist on my own."

"Mark-"

He pushes her down and wraps his arms tightly around her waist, just the way she likes now, before adding, "You are never an obligation. I do what I want. I am a grown man and if I want to lie in bed with my estranged friend who I had almost sex with today then I am going to lie in bed with her. Now zip it and sleep."

"But-"

"Addison, shut up." He kisses the back of her neck and relaxes when he feels her legs search for his under the blankets. He waits until he is certain she has drifted off before adding an 'I love you' and snuggling a little closer. He finds it odd that a man such as him, formerly an avid hater of all things related to snuggling and cuddling, could grow so attached to it. He likes that sometimes their breathing patterns align and their chests are heaving together. He enjoys the way her skin feels pressed up against his and the way she sort of molds into him like she was always meant to be there. He deems her intoxicating and therefore probably unhealthy (the train of thought somehow concluding that he has gone soft and seriously needs to man up) but manages to sneak in a few hours of sleep before the deafening cries are supposed to be heard again.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Pierce open the door!" Addison shouts the following day. After a temper tantrum by a non-fevered Elianna she hastily gave in and drove her to school and now stands outside of her sister's old house.

"Pierce, I will stand out here all damn day." Kennedy pipes up from beside her, "You hear that? That's your daughter. Open up!"

"He's not there." The woman from across the street offers. Addison spins around and looks at the older woman retrieving her paper from its box.

"What?"

"He left. Hasn't been home in a few weeks."

"Great." She grumbles as she makes her way back to the car. She was determined to get him to take back his kids because she is at her wits end and it has been far too long. She can't concern herself with herself until she can have a second to breathe and think.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"He's gone." Addison exclaims when she returns to the office a short while later.

"Why are you here and what the hell happened to your arm?" Naomi grabs her right arm and flips it from side to side. "Addison, you didn't-"

"It was an accident." Mark fills in beside her.

They spent the early morning hours discussing their current positions and decided that neither one wanted to part with the other but that it was also a bad time to jump into anything overtly serious so they are dating. How that works, neither one of them knows but it makes them both feel better about him spending every night at her house so they take it and run. She feels relieved knowing that he wants to be around; that he is interested in her and he feels happy that she is giving him a chance even if she is completely out of her mind. He'll take whatever shot he can get.

Naomi is a little too familiar with her best friend's past to be certain of said "accident" but brushes it aside for another time. "Ok."

"Meeting, let's go!" Sam shouts, adamant about keeping some form of a schedule.

"Addison-"

"Oh, I know. I don't get to work until I get head shrinked. Hope you can do without me for a few years Nae because that is never going to happen."

"It's Violet." She shrugs. "Just talk to her, I need to clear you. You have to be semi-sane to deliver babies."

"Not happening."

"Addie." Mark begins as he sidles up next to her lightly placing his hand on the small of her back. "That might not be such a bad idea." She gives him a look that stops him cold and then receives a similar look from her friend.

"What the hell is going on between you….oh god, Sam!"

"Naomi! Woman, we have a schedule for a reason."

She points as Mark hastily pulls his hand away from her. "Consorting."

"What?" Mark whispers into Addison's ear.

"Busted." Naomi grins as Sam, Violet and Cooper join her. Addison's cell phone blares through the glaring and the awkward silences and she takes the opportunity to remove herself.

"At least it's not her and Pete." Cooper offers.

"Me and who?" Pete asks as he joins the group.

"No one." They all answer and run off to their respective corners.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Dr. Montgomery, do you make practice out of sending sick children to school?" Charles asks her making sure to stress the fact that she is a doctor and not a miss.

Feeling moderately embarrassed about last week's deplorable behavior with the headmaster she politely folds her hands in her lap and offers the best smile she can come up with. "No Charles, I do not." She ignores mentioning that Ellie wasn't well last night and presses forward. "What seems to be the problem?"

"We don't know. She won't tell us."

"She won't tell you? Does she have a fever, is she vomiting? I mean what is so important that you called me away from my job again?"

"She won't talk."

"She won't talk." Addison repeats as she begins to grow tired of the stupid dance they are rolling around in circles from.

"Not a word all day. We pride ourselves on socializing our children and we feel that you should take her home so she doesn't disturb the classroom anymore. She is more than welcome back when she feels like participating."

"She won't talk."

"No, she won't. It's incredibly disruptive to the learning that is trying to take place."

"It's first grade for crying out loud! What are they learning, how to subtract? Maybe she doesn't feel like talking today and who am I to tell her that that is wrong? I see nothing inherently bad about it, hell if half of the kids in world were more quiet than maybe-" She stops herself before she explodes and stands. "I'll take her home today but she is coming back tomorrow and for the love of god stop calling me out here over ridiculous things. I'm trying to save lives." She throws in the last line as a cheap shot and huffs her way out of the office.

**_-----_**

"Addison?" Mark calls out later that night. He hasn't heard from her since mid morning and the entire staff has been playing 20 questions for the last seven hours. He finds her stretched out on the couch. One sleeping infant on her chest and one half awake five year old plopped up by her feet watching television.

"Ellie? Why don't you go wash your hands for dinner, ok?" He asks as he makes his way to the kitchen with the take out. When Ellie climbs out of Addison's legs she awakens with a jolt that very nearly sends Kennedy flying.

"Mark?"

"Kitchen."

"What are you doing home? It's…" Her sentence trails off as she catches a glance of the clock. "Never mind." He stomach churns as her nose takes in the smell from whatever he brought in with him. She places Kennedy down hastily and rushes the bathroom. Upon emerging she demands that whatever that was be thrown away and the house to be aired out.

"She won't talk."

"Who? Ellie?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." He replies as he watches her mood drop to the floor. "Maybe we should…ok you aren't going to like this but we should do right by her while we have her. Maybe we should take her to Violet."

"No, yeah. I don't know." Addison shrugs as she toes closer to him and rests her head against his chest. Her mind floats elsewhere and the question she has been asking herself from the beginning pops out suddenly, "Do you think I should keep this baby?"

**_-----_**

* * *


	18. Can't we say what we're thinking of

A/N: So one day later than I thought it would be but in my defense I had some computer things happen and lost the first half. Much thanks to my beta for putting up with my crazy thoughts and grammatical errors and thank you to everyone for the support on this piece because it keeps me writing. Enjoy!**_  
_**

**_-----_**

**_I'm missing parts, now that you've told me everything_**

**_(On our way down)_**

**_And I was blessed and I've forgotten how to love_**

**_You said you'd never tell_**

**_And when you're on your way down_**

**_(Through the clouds)_**

**_And you're waiting for your body's re-entry again_**

**_…_**

**_We speak in different voices_**

**_When fighting with the ones we've loved_**

**_We speak in different voices_**

**_Why can't we say what we're thinking of_**

_-Saosin, "Voices"_

**_-----_**

Hesitation kills. It is as simple as that. Basic fundamentals of medicine; lingering endangers your patient. Act without thinking; dead. Think too long without acting; dead. Mark has always been outright brilliant at toeing the line but not tonight. He rarely takes pause because he is a decisive person. He knows what he wants out of life and he goes after it. He is often thought to be callous and uncaring but why should he be faulted for knowing exactly what he wants? 

_"Do you think I should keep this baby?"_

And he has got nothing to say because she won't want to hear his answer. Zero words because what she wants is reassurance. She wants a good pat on the back and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that someone else thinks that she is doing the right thing.

So can he tell her that the words that are blaring through his mind like a steam engine are, "Hell no!"? Absolutely not, so he keeps his mouth shut. He stares down at her vacant bluish eyes and takes a moment to weigh the importance of the situation.

He certainly isn't going to shout out, "I love you. I love him/her and I can't wait to have a baby with you."

Because the truth is that it isn't his baby; it's Derek's. And for the life of him he can't figure out why this baby gets to stick around and his had to go. Sure he'd be lying his ass off if he said he wasn't still bitter about the whole thing but he does love her, even though he's not saying it. He outright refuses to acknowledge his feelings aloud because he knows that it won't be reciprocated and that is a little too much for him to bear right now. Instead he purses his lips and wraps his arms around her slightly shaking frame a little tighter and then…

He hesitates.  
_  
_

_-----_

Dithering lead him straight to her front porch where he has been sitting patiently in the cool breeze for about a half an hour. He is certain that the lock is in place tonight. He attempted ringing the door bell but it went unnoticed and then knocking but that was met with a resounding, "Go to hell Mark!" So he sits with his hands in his lap waiting for her to cool down.

He knows from experience that she will give in at some point but the hardest part is always waiting it out. Perhaps he should take into account that the issues at hand right now are nothing in comparison to his past but he remains strong in his faith. She will open the door at some point.

Never one to hold anyone accountable for things because it merely leads to an odd sense of disappointment, she is one person he has come to rely heavily on. Her presence is calming and intoxicating all in its own right and he wishes that he could be alright with all of this. But it is too fast; too soon.

He wants to blame the hormones. The crazy, woman hormones that lead to huge fights over nothing and tears spilled over tedious household chores. He can deal with the hormones and he can certainly fight with her. It's most of what they do day in and day out anyway. She bosses, he attempts to fight back (mostly for kicks), and then he gives in. This isn't one of those times. Although, he is positive that hormones are playing their part in this, it isn't a situation that he has been thrown into before. Mostly, he isn't sure if he should act normal (in hopes that she would appreciate that), or if he should walk on ice around her (like everyone else has taken to doing).

**_-----_**

She wrings her hands and paces through the entry way stopping occasionally to see if he has left yet. She knows better than to leave someone outside without their jacket but she is allowed to be outside the right frame of mind tonight. The cut on her arm keeps catching on her sweater and it tugs with the remembrance of this afternoon's endeavors and she cringes just thinking about what she had to do to get that high. The extremes and lengths she had to reach out to in order to feel alive.

That's when she knows something is wrong.

Because even when life has been bad, outright awful, she never had a problem knowing she existed. The pain only proved that she was more alive than she cared to be at times. She lets her fingers trail over the edges of the white bandage and remembers not feeling anything when Mark slipped the needle inside her flesh or when he pulled the slivers of glass from the nearly infected area. She pads back over to the door and slips her finger on the metal lock. He has suffered long enough outside and she knows that he is way too stubborn to just leave and go home.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

He follows her inside carefully watching his steps and being slow in nature. What he doesn't want or need right now is another girl flip out moment.

He grimaces as he acknowledges, "We need to talk Addison." Mostly angered by the fact that they have been decidedly together as a couple for under a day and are already fighting he simply stops in the living room and waits for her to respond to him.

"I know." She says softly before turning on her heel and reaching for Kennedy.

"If you are trying to wake her up so that she'll cry and we won't have to talk then you should know that I will wait all night." He grumbles as she begins to sway side to side.

"I'm not." The truth is she just wanted something to do, something to occupy herself with so that she doesn't end up being a basket case again.

"Okay." He steps toward the two and then gives up and resigns himself to the couch. He kicks off his shoes and waits for her to take the lead.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Cooper, wait up!" Violet yells out as she sees him hit the elevator button.

He mentally runs down the list of patients that they have together and decides that it can't be worked related. His heart skips a beat as she comes bounding toward him only to drop when he sees the file in her hand. "What's up?"

"I need you to tell me what this means. I looked over it and I get some of it but I'm not seeing it." She states as she shoves Reagan's file into his hands.

"Okay. I'll have a look tonight and let you know in the morning." He shrugs as they enter the elevator together.

"Thanks Coop."

"So how's the Alan fan club going?"

"Oh, shut up. You know I am not with him."

He jabs at her side with the file and smirks, "You wish you were."

"Nope." She smiles brightly over at him.

"Oh, that's right. You want Addison's ex-husband. You gotta find your own men Vi."

"Cooper!"  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Hey Meredith, do you have a minute?" Derek calls out as he steps onto the third floor of Seattle Grace.

Her stomach balls into knots and instantly jumps into her throat at his sight. "Sure." She chokes out not entirely sure she is going to like where this is headed. He has been missing for one plus week and she hasn't heard a word since he left for California.

They make their way to an empty on call room where she takes a seat on the bed and he begins pacing in front of her. The anticipation kills and she finally blurts out, "Just say it already Derek."

"I...uh…we need to break up."

"We are broken up Derek." She mocks trying to keep her composure.

"I know but for good."

She stands sensing no relief and heads for the door. "Great." She mumbles and exits before the tears can set in.

Derek sits almost contently on the edge of the bed after her departure. He has spent the greater portion of the last year chasing a dream he didn't know was right in front of him. He tips his head onto his hands and exhales deeply. He finally knows what he wants; now all he has to do is get Addison back.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"That wasn't fair of me." Addison starts off weakly, not in the mood for conversation of any sort, especially an argument.

"No, it wasn't."

She takes a big gulp of air. "Sorry." And the she swallows hard hoping that it was loud enough that she won't have to repeat it.

"No you aren't." He argues as her eyes open in disbelief. She lays Kennedy back down and walks towards the couch prepared to fight.

"Yes, I am. I shouldn't have asked you and I'm sorry."

"If you were sorry, if you honestly wanted to know what I thought you wouldn't have put me in that position where there was only one answer."

"God, Mark! Here I am going out on a limb and apologizing…which you know I don't take lightly to and you reject it. Just go home. Leave." She yells as she points to the door.

"Addison-"

"No. Go!"

"I was just saying-"

"You don't get to make me awful in my own home. I have had enough of that for one day so leave me alone." She sniffles as the tears begin to set in and tries furiously to keep her face steady.

He watches as the exterior begins to fail and the pain washes across her face. There is no way he is winning this battle tonight, if ever, so he stands and makes his way towards her. "Addie, let's go sleep. Deal with it in the morning?" He offers as he catches her gaze. "We'll get some rest and then talk in a civilized manner. I'm still here. I'm still in, okay?"

She eyes him wearily before picking up the infant and storming out of the room. He trails behind her and waits until she has settled herself in bed before climbing in behind her and practically suffocating her in his arms. She pushes back out of need and not anger and when her legs curl into his, he knows that maybe he needs to give her reassurance and not the real answer even if it means lying a little.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"You. We need to talk now." Sam states as he grabs Mark by the arm on his way into his office.

The morning was spent busily packing up Ellie, who is still refusing to speak, and getting her off to school. The lack of communication made it difficult to assess whether or not she wanted breakfast and how she wanted her hair but two hours later, after tears and tantrums they finally managed to pile into the car. He left Addison in the parking lot debating whether or not to come in and promised he would see her at lunch to talk.

"Whoa, easy on the arm there pal." Mark says as he twists out of his grip.

"Are you dating Addison?" Sam shouts as he closes the door behind him. He vaguely remembers Mark and all of the stories that go with him, quickly deciding overnight that Pete may indeed be the better option.

"Yes. No. Maybe?"

"It's not a multiple choice answer. True or false."

"True but-"

"No buts. You shut up and listen." Sam starts as he pulls a chair for Mark.

"Fine."

"We have a no consorting rule which may be difficult for you and your manwhoring ways but we have a no consorting rule!"

"You said that already." Mark points out and then grins as he watches the shorter man grow flustered.

"When I say no consorting what comes to mind?"

"Nurses. Definitely nurses and interns."

"If you hurt her…I'll- I'll sick Naomi on you."

"Understood." Mark stands and pats him on the back. "Good talk boss."

Sam clenches his fist and tightens his jaw as he yells out, "No consorting, damn New Yorkers."

**_-----_**

"Addison!" Naomi yells out as she catches glimpse of said woman and a baby headed toward the reception desk.

"Morning Nae." Addison smiles as she grabs her messages from Dell and turns on her heel.

Naomi follows her patiently and waits till the door clicks behind her to unleash her full wrath. "I ask you to go home, I beg you to go home."

"I went home. Yesterday."

"And you hurt yourself. Listen, Addison you know that there are better options than that-"

"It was an accident." Addison huffs as she takes a seat behind her desk.

Naomi follows suit hastily crossing her legs. "You shouldn't be here. What do I have to do, get a restraining order against my best friend?"

"No. Perhaps you should realize that working helps me. It helps me get through the day Naomi. It gives me purpose. Let me do my job."

"It gives you a distraction. It lets you pretend to not be your real self for eight to twelve hours a day. It's an escape and you are using it as one. What happens when the walls come all the way down, what happens in the middle of a delivery when you just can't keep pretending? Dell is not ready to have to deliver on his own." Naomi quips as she watches the files begin to shuffle.

"When did you turn into Dr. Phil? Isn't that Violet's job?"

"I've had it Addison! I don't know how to say it anymore. You want it in different languages or something. What is it that you speak? German? Chinese?"

"French." Addison mutters as the tirade begins.

"Well I don't know French so get the hell out. Get your ass home and rest. Relax, play with the baby and revel in the days off because when you come back I am going to be riding you to make sure you are up to speed."

She watches as the red light flips on in her friend's head. Gathering her things and Kennedy she simply stands and heads to the door. "You are the worst friend I could've asked for." She seethes.

"I am helping you, which I understand you don't take to unless it is Mark but-"

"You aren't helping me! If you were helping you would come check on me, you would come sit with me and hold my hand when I need someone. All you do is tell me to get away from you. So fine, you win. I'm gone." She slams her own office door before marching past Mark and heading onto the elevator.

"Addison." Naomi starts as she follows her but then stops herself and storms off to her own office and makes sure to slam the door equally loud.

"See this." Cooper points out to Sam and Mark. "I blame you both for this and the subsequent departure of the best ob/gyn we have had in years."

"She quit?" Mark asks.

"What! Naomi. Damn it, this place has turned into a three ring circus." Sam vents as he heads toward his ex-wife's door.

"She didn't quit, did she?" Mark begins again.

"No. But she will. I can just tell."

"Great a shrink, a quack, and a psychic. Sounds like a bad joke. I just love my new job."

"I resent that. Did you see Addison, she looks pissed." Pete mentions as he heads toward the coffee in the break room. Mark tears off for the elevator and Cooper makes his way for the next patient of the day.

**_-----_**

"Addie!" Mark calls out as soon as his feet hit the pavement. He sprints to the car to find her securing Kennedy.

"Go away Mark. Go do your job." She whispers.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing." Addison answers in a tone barely vocal.

"I'll handle it. Just go inside and do what you want. Go work if you want."

"Can't." She shuts the door and quickly rounds to the front of the new SUV. She gave up hope on Pierce returning and subsequently gave up hope of ever driving her fun little convertible again. Now she is stuck with a silver, gas guzzling, machine and regrettably finds it more suiting anyway.

"Sure you can. This is a group practice. You work together but you also set your own schedule, right?"

"Kind of." She affirms reaching for the handle on her door.

He rounds the front of the car beating her to the door and placing his hand over hers when she reaches out. "So do a half day or something. Catch up on paperwork. Shuffle your appointments so they are to your liking for the rest of the week." He offers with a grin when she takes a step back and appears to be contemplating things.

"You are just like them. Exactly the same." She glares, moving away from the man in front of her.

"Wait, Addison. What are you even talking about?" He huffs trying to follow the illogical thought train.

"Stop pitying me. I don't need that right now."

"I'm not." He begins, suddenly feeling overly defensive. The circles he has to do to stay up with her are exhausting and he has no idea where the motives for anything in the last few days have come from. They simply are there and he hasn't had the time to think about them.

"You are. Look, god you are doing it right now. Just go back in and I'll see you at home later."

He steps away from the car slowly watching her get in and drive out of the parking lot. The amount of excitement induced over the fact that she said home, as in both of them living there, was quickly shot down by the tone of her voice. He shuffles his feet, exhaling loud enough for the rest of the lot to hear and makes his way back in to announce that she is gone.

**_-----_**

"Richard!" Derek calls out as he spots the older man about twenty feet down the hall. He has spent the better portion of the morning concocting a plan of action with regard to his ex-wife and future baby and now needs to set it in motion.

He turns slowly, grasping a chart and replies, "Shep."

"Hey, I need some more time off I think."

"Something wrong?" Richard asks as he lowers his tone. The last thing he wants is another rumor started in his hospital.

"No, nothing's wrong." He smiles, "Things are good actually. I just need to go back down to California for a few days is all."

"Derek." The older man places a supportive hand on his shoulder and leads him from the hall into an empty room. "Look, I know you miss her. We all do, and I would love nothing more than to have those annoying heels back in these hallways but you need to leave her alone. You have to move on."

"I do miss her." Derek nods but then adds something he is certain only the Chief can hear, "She's pregnant. It's mine." And the smile begins to form again. "We're having a baby, finally. A family, Richard. You get that."

Richard shakes his head knowing exactly where this will all end up. He is wise beyond his years and knows from the insane smile on his quasi would-be son's face that this is the dream. But dreams are quashed and brushed aside like they were never meant to be at all so he questions him like it is going out of style. "Does she want you there?"

"I don't know. She could, she would I think."

"Does she know you are coming back?"

"Not yet. I wanted to get the time off first before I got anyone's hopes up."

"What did you go down there for to begin with?"

"Reagan died in surgery. I went-"

"Out of obligation, Derek." Richard finishes, gaining momentum.

"No. Well yes, but then Judith held a memorial at Addison's house and you should see this place. Right on the beach, it's beautiful minus all the people. Anyway we were standing out back and I told her that I missed her and she told me she was pregnant. Admittedly, I freaked a little and I left but I came back…this is my kid. I have to come back."

"Sloan is there?"

"Yeah."

"What happens when she doesn't want you Derek?"

Derek hangs a smug smile up and states, "I wouldn't worry about that. This is us. Addison and Derek, it just works."

Richard sighs exasperatedly because his tactics don't appear to be working. "Things break, things break and they can't ever be fixed again. You know that."

"I have to at least try."

"You going to move down there?"

"What! No. I have…I just moved here."

"Then how do you plan on being a part of a child's life when you are hundreds of miles away? It's possible but that isn't the kind of relationship you want."

"Addison will come back. You'll see. This will work Richard, relax. You will have your star surgeon back, I my wife and things…" He trail off as memories flash overhead. "Things are finally going to be good again." Starting for the door he calls out again, "You'll see."

**_-----_**

Forgetting his lunch plans until 3 pm Mark hastily grabs his coat and springs from the door. He has attempted calling her all afternoon but she has refused to answer. Fearing that they are knee deep in mid fight he deems it appropriate to take the rest of the afternoon off and heads off to find Naomi just in case she is interested. He is not exactly sure how this all works yet and his arrangement is only furthered plagued by the fact that he has to intermingle with the ever cooperating St. Ambrose.

He pokes his head into her office. "Hey, Naomi? I'm going to head out. I didn't know if I tell you or I go but I thought you should have the heads up."

"Mark." She begins lifting her head off the desk it has been occupying since Addison swept herself away. "Can I have a word?"

He shrugs, unsure of what is to follow but steps inside anyway. "Sure. What's up?"

"Do you…It's just that I…She makes me so." She shakes her hands in frustration and then aches out, "Do you think I am a bad friend?"

"No." He answers a little too quickly. Decisiveness applies.

"It's just, she has a point. I haven't been around much and I…I can't. I have a life, well I don't but I have a family. A broken family but a family nonetheless and she is exhausting to be around. Literally she drains the life out of me and makes me depressed enough to cut my own wrists."

"That was an accident, well sort of. I watched her do it. But she didn't pick up the glass and hold it to her flesh, it just happened. Not that she cares or anything."

"Yeah, okay. I should stop annoying her about that. I don't want her to make some stupid choices and run away, you know?"

Mark laughs inwardly because out of everyone Naomi could share with she chose him. It's ridiculous because he isn't big on talks or emotions but indulges, always, where Addison is concerned. She is the one exception to his rule. "I'm trying. It's hard."

"It's maddening. And I don't know what to say. You can't say anything about anything around her…I don't want to make her upset and I just keep sending her away because I can't deal. I am a bad friend."

"You're honest. That does not a bad friend make." Mark points out wishing that someone would cherish his truthfulness a little more often. He leaves her with the thought and skips out before he is banished to more girl talk with his new boss.

**_-----_**

Meredith, much like her counterpart in the Dirty Mistresses Club, has the wrong time wrong place syndrome. More than half of the problems in her life could simply be avoided if she could stop stumbling into conversations she was never meant to hear in the first place. So, she's bitter about the break up and really she deserves something to be angry about, so she shares. It's her thing, gossip without judgment. The rest of them can analyze and tear it apart, she just tries to throw on the happy face and deal with what comes her way.

"So seriously?" Izzie questions as she finishes off an apple.

"Seriously."

"She could be lying." Cristina offers in a display of protection of her fragile friend.

"It's my life." Meredith slumps back against the chair. "It's just too perfectly fitting to be a lie."

"True." Cristina acknowledges before turning back to the file in front of her.

"Cristina!" Izzie chastises. "Mer, look we don't know anything until she comes here. If she does."

"You know…" Cristina starts in thoughtfully. "You should be happy you washed your hands clean from that mess. It's a disaster and you are free now. Good riddance I say."

Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel isn't really Meredith's thing. It isn't like she doesn't try; it's just that more crap usually gets piled until the light grows too dim to see. "That's one way to think of it." She acknowledges. "So let's talk about something else. Addison's baby, or not baby. None of my business. What's new to the world of Izzie?" She asks and then prepares for the slingshot of verbal jargon that will ensue.

**_-----_**

Upon reaching Addison's home and the place where the majority of his things reside he finds the front door to be locked. He checks the driveway, seeing her SUV there and knows the car is somewhere in the garage. Rounding the house to the back door he notices that all of the lights are off, not that they would be necessary in the day light, but there is usually something on. This door is locked as well so he takes to knocking and ringing the doorbell until he hears something shift inside.

Clad in a pair of his boxers and an old sweat shirt Addison pulls the door back. She crinkles the tissue in her hands a little tighter as her swollen eyes adjust to the light of day.

"Addie." He takes in her appearance, from his clothes to the tear stained face and red eyes down to the bare feet and shaking hands. He moves inside and takes her in his arms immediately pushing her back toward the couch. "What happened?" He whispers in her ear as they shuffle along the rug.

She gulps, quelling the tears and simply states, "This is what happens Mark. This is what happens when I am left alone with my own thoughts!" She steps away from him, running her finger through the red tangles and raises her voice, "This is why I have to work!" She motions to her clothes, well his clothes. "I can't sit around all damn day and cry. I have to do something. Something, I need something to do."

He looks around, trying not to laugh at the unbelievably not funny situation. "The house looks nice." Being met with a quick jab to his side from her opened fist he fakes pain and engulfs her in a hug again. "Sorry. Sorry."

"I hate this! It's not funny that I am so emotionally unstable that if I am left unoccupied for more than twenty minutes than I turn into some basket case. Who does that!" She shouts into his ear.

"A lot of people. You've been surprisingly strong the last few weeks. Now it's your turn to fall. Give in so you can move on. You don't want to be stuck like this."

"I can't give in. I have responsibilities. I have children to look after and one to grow. And I don't know. I can't pick if I want it and you shouldn't have to raise someone else's kid. I finally know what I want out of life and I fucked it up too bad to get it." She tosses a little in his arms but he refuses to step back.

"What do you want?"

She shakes her head and then gives up. "You. I want you and I want this baby. See the problem?"

"Yeah." He finally releases her as the tears set in again and he watches as she swipes at them with the tattered tissue.

"And I want her. I just want to wake up and have my sister back. It's the stupidest thing in the world because I know! I know it doesn't work like that but no matter how much I tell myself that, it just won't go away. This annoying, nagging feeling that looms over everything, I hate it. I just want to feel, I need to feel."

He has no idea what to say. His brain can't even think of the right things to reply before she starts in again.

"I'm such a screw up. God, you should go. You should run away now before I sucker you into this. I cry all the time and I feel ridiculous when I am done…it's like borderline bipolar. You don't like kids. You hate them and I have two and they aren't mine and maybe another and…that's not yours either. I kind of want it to be and I want to tell you how sorry I am about…the other…you know? But I wasn't ready then. I'm not ready now, and I don't have a choice this time. It's all just happening to me! There's no control and I want something to control. I-"

She stops the rambling rant on her own when she crumples to the ground holding her knees and takes to rocking back and forth again when the silent sobs start up. He watches unsure of whether trying to soothe her is a viable option and simply takes a seat across from her and grabs her hands, giving them a good squeeze to let her know that if she needs him he is still there.

The sniffles cease and she lifts her head off of her knees twenty minutes later. Her voice is hoarse again and it cuts her to speak. "Fix me." She manages hoping that he will understand the despair in her voice.

"Addison."

"Fix me…please. I can't. Fix me." She pleads before crawling into his lap and burying her head against his shoulder.

**_-----_**

Naomi nervously paces her office as she watches the five year old sit sulking in the corner. Her school had reached Naomi in hopes of getting Addison. Someone had neglected to pick up their child and now it was her problem. She tried both of their cells, the house phone, pagers and even email but with no avail. She grabs her purse off the desk as Elianna widens her eyes with the movement.

"Come on." She reaches her hand out to the girl. "We are going to go see if Aunt Addison is at home. You want to go home?" She is met with a blank stare, which is what she has been getting for the last hour and she wonders if Addison knows that this is going on.

Certainly, Ellie, the social butterfly of a child was not like this at her party a few short days ago. She ran, played, and tore through presents like there was no tomorrow. Naomi saw it with her own eyes and the current demeanor is startling at best. She grabs her purse and Ellie's hand even though she never offered it and notifies Dell that she is out for the day.

**_-----_**

After painstakingly explaining that he can't fix her, no matter how much he wants to, the crying finally ceases. He tips her head upward and tries to convey that he doesn't know how to feel about the impending child but that he has always wanted a child with her.

"I want you too."

"You shouldn't." She replies.

"Well, no one ever said I picked the easiest roads in life. But this, this I have wanted for years and if you are giving me the chance….well, then I can't shy away because there are some obstacles."

"It's not an obstacle. It's a child."

"I know that." He assures her and then reminds himself again of what this step means.

"So?"

"So, I'm here. I'm in until you lock me out and even then I will just sleep on the front porch and sneak in when you leave for work." Her small chuckle relaxes him enough to continue. "And I'm not going to sit here and tell you I am over you…aborting…our child, because I'm not. But I will be, someday. And I know that even after that I want you."

"I have baggage." She reminds him pointing to the sleeping infant.

"We all do."

"I have a lot." She rolls her eyes and snuggles back farther into him.

"Me too."

"All because of me."

"Nah, I create my own problems."

"So you're in?"

He smiles as he looks down at her matted hair against his shirt. "All the way. But no sex."

"But-"

"Nope. If I'm in…If you are actually giving me a chance for once then we are doing it right."

"We already have sex. Had sex, that's what we did. It's our thing." She reminds him.

"We'll get a new thing. Like bowling or painting stained glass."

She immediately crinkles her nose at the thought of both, "I hate both of those. I don't do hobbies."

"I know."

She resigns herself to continue sharing no matter how silly it seems because the house is quiet and they are finally alone. "I'm still going to fall apart a lot. A lot, a lot. Like in a few hours I'm sure."

He shrugs. "Been there, done that, can do it again in my sleep."

"I'm going to have bad days."

"Me too." He begins stroking her hair and lets her continue on with the little game of how much she can trust him. It's a test, outright and he has been waiting for years to be able to sit down with the pencil and ace it.

Her voice grows quiet. "I'm going to get fat and ugly…if I do…keep it."

"Doubt it. I find pregnant women incredibly attractive."

"You do not."

"Well, I find you wildly attractive. How's that?"

"It may work."

"And-"

He cuts her off because he thinks he has said enough to quench her thirst. "Addison, how about we take it a day at a time?"

"No, we can't-"

He rubs lightly up and down her spine. "I'm here. I'm in. Now relax a little and breathe before you land yourself back in the hospital and I have Naomi cutting me because I hurt you."

"She said that?" Addison asks as she peeks out from under her hair, trying to brush it aside.

"Well, Sam said he would sick Naomi on me. I don't know what that means…but I'm a little scared."

"I was awful to her."

"I wouldn't worry about that." He affirms and stands pulling her up with him. "Hungry?"

"Never."

"Go change and I'll find something. You should eat after that dazzling display."

**_-----_**

Naomi impatiently taps her foot as she rings the doorbell again at her friend's home. She catches a glance of Sam pulling into his driveway and wants nothing more than to duck inside so that they won't be subjected to awkward conversation. At long last the door is opened by Mark and a screaming infant.

"Oh, god. Ellie." He remarks as she brushes past him and heads for the stairs.

"You all forget something today?"

"Yeah, I guess. Christ I totally forgot and Addison, well she is sleeping now but…"

"She's asleep?"

"Yeah. Rough afternoon." He states as he steps back to let her in the dimly lit home. She enters cautiously.

"Right. Well will you tell her I was here at least?"

"Yeah. I can do that."

"Mark." Naomi states as she watches him try to calm the infant on his shoulder.

"What?"

"Give me her." Naomi reaches out to the baby and Mark graciously lets go. Within seconds the crying has calmed and Kennedy's bright green eyes search the room excitedly.

"God Naomi, you put me to shame. I suck so badly at this." He grumbles heading to the kitchen to grab a drink of water.

"You aren't bad at this. You just have zero practice and she isn't familiar with you yet." She remarks as she follows him through the maze of Elianna's dropped school things. She steps over the backpack and around the lunchbox.

Mark sips his water and then sets the cup back down carefully. "Is there something wrong with her? I don't want to ask Addison because I don't want to freak her out if she hasn't thought of it yet but…she cries literally all the time."

"She sleeps."

"Ok, yeah but not as much as I envisioned a kid should sleep."

"She may be colicky. Maya never got it but it isn't uncommon. Or it could just be situational anxiety. Addison isn't exactly in the best position to be calm and soothing around her so everything is a little forced I would imagine."

"Yeah."

"Maybe you could have Cooper take a look and tell Addison or don't. No need to worry her over nothing."

"True." He answers heading back out of the kitchen to find a more comfortable location.

She bites down on her lip unsure of what she has to say. "I'm worried about Elianna, Mark. I know that she isn't your kid and I should be telling Addison but since she is asleep I think it is only fair that I do it this way."

"Yeah, I know."

"She isn't talking. She won't even answer me nonverbally. She's just a little walking ghost. I think that there is something wrong, did anything happen?"

He scuffs his shoe against the side of the coffee table. This isn't his division of expertise and he has no idea what in the world would get a kid so worked up. "Not that I know of."

"Addison say anything about school to you?"

"She had to pick her up yesterday because the headmaster was angry that she wouldn't participate but they never said anything about why."

Naomi exhales trying to not let the situation impact her mood. Everything in the room is darkened and the sense of misery is overwhelming, she isn't sure how Mark can stand it. "Has anyone tried to talk about it with her?"

"We tried talking to her and she would just throw a fit or start crying so I gave up this morning." He runs his finger through his short hair and exclaims, "That was probably a mistake, huh? I just don't have the patience for silly games."

"It's not a game to her. There is something wrong, perhaps Violet could talk to everyone and see what is going on."

"I suggested that earlier but Addison isn't interested."

"Well, maybe it is time to put caution to the wind and do what we know is right. Regardless of what Addison thinks or doesn't think is best." Naomi states with a raised brow.

"What are you suggesting?"

"Simply that you bring in the kids and distract her or they could see Coop and Vi while Addison is with a patient."

"You think she is going to allow Ellie to miss school? And you're going to let her work now?"

"I think it is in the best interest of everyone involved that these kids get to see a doctor. I can't force Addie no matter how much I think it is right of her to start talking to someone but the kids should be taken care of."

"Ok."

Naomi hands him back the calmed infant who immediately begins wailing in his arms and grabs her purse off the couch. "Tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"See you."

"I don't like this!" Mark yells after her and listens as she closes the door.

**_-----_**

Addison rises to find herself somehow in her bed. She has no recollection of putting herself there and her heart rate rises until she remembers Mark being home with her. She shifts her legs from under the blankets and her feet meet the cold wood floor with an involuntary shiver. She shirks under her long sleeve shirt a little more and pads to the door to find Ellie's light on.

"Elianna?" She asks as she cracks the door open farther to reveal the small girl sitting on the bed with her hands in her lap. There are no toys out, her room is spotless, and she takes no notice of her Aunt.

Addison sighs heavily acknowledging that the dismal situation hasn't been aided by a day of classmates and takes a seat next to her niece. She stares at her briefly before giving up and pulling the school uniformed child into her lap. At first Elianna refuses to be consoled and remains stiff in her arms but after about five minutes of light back rubbing she sinks her head into Addison's chest and lets the tears pour out uncontrollably.

"Shhh…Ellie. I know, I know." She strokes her hair relentlessly until she gives in lets her our tears out of their temporary cage. They cry together for the same reasons, clinging to one another for life and Addison curses herself for not being able to be the stronger of the two. She needs to be able to take care of the girl and yet she finds herself sobbing when Ellie cinches the material of her sleeve in a death grip. She lets it all go and mourns with the small person who can't even understand the implications of what this will do to her life.

Mark climbs the stairs, having thought he heard movement and praying that Addison is up so that she can attempt to stop the cries coming from Kennedy's tired mouth. He hears them when he hits the eleventh stair and by the time he enters the doorway he is certain that he won't like what he sees. He stands frozen; watching the scene from what he is certain belongs in an overly emotional chick flick.

Addison eventually lifts her eyes to find his and then shakes her head promptly burying it in the mess of red curls beneath her head. She clenches her jaw and pulls off Ellie's shoes so that they no longer dig into her bare calves. He remains stuck five feet from the bed. Listening intently as the cries leave all three of his girls, he has to turn away briefly when it sends him over the edge and he finds his own throat tightening and tears threatening the corner of his eyes. They all look to him randomly at different times for help, for the light out of the darkness and he remains their leader. Under-equipped, overwhelmed, and ill prepared he is their leader. He feels the pressure mounting and his feet move beneath him and before he knows it he is out the back door and ankle deep in sand trying to escape.

**_-----_**

* * *


	19. To your grave I spoke

A/N: It is still Saturday in my time zone so I feel accomplished about staying in my time frame for turn around. I am so-so about this chapter which more than likely can be attributed to the amount of fluff within. Thanks to Hannah for betaing and to everyone who reads and comments. You all make my day!

**_-----  
_**

**_ Always, always just out of reach from my_**

**_ Over frustrated shameful hands_**

**_ And I never, never expected that I_**

**_ Would ever, no never take for granted our precious time_**

**_ To your grave I spoke_**

**_ Holding a red, red rose_**

**_ Gust of freezing cold air_**

**_ Whispers to me you're gone_**

**_ Spent a lifetime of holding on just to let go_**

**_ I guess I'll spend another lifetime_**

**_Searching for a new hope_**

_- Broken Iris, "A New Hope"_

**_ -----_**

Addison tugs on a sweater and hastily reaches for her cell phone on the table next to her. No calls. No messages. She chucks back it back down rattling the wood and stirring the infant next to her. She quickly sends a prayer up that there will be no crying and exhales when it finally is answered. She pads to the window trying to see if maybe he is sleeping on the front porch like he promised but there is no figure in the darkness. She ponders checking the house or calling him but it's already been done; three times.

**_-----_**

"Morning Violet, can I have a word with you?" Addison asks as she drops her copy of The Times on the counter next to her.

Violet looks around, hoping that she didn't do something because her co-worker is kind of wearing the 'I'm going to eat you' face and replies, "Sure. What…I mean what do you need?" She rushes out in an unbelievably anxious manner.

"I need you for a consult."

"Oh, ok." She replies as the wave of relief washes over her face.

"I'll meet you in your office, say in ten? Are you free?" Addison asks picking the paper back up. Halfway through the crossword this morning she realized that he ran away. By the time she had the first round of morning sickness under control and had stowed away the saltines in her purse she knew he wasn't coming back. The realization slowly shook the shock away and now she is merely living in the reality of having to buck up and be the strong one again. She put on the stone cold statue face, marched into work, demanded her patients, and has been flying through the day without so much as a word to Mark who has been hiding in his office.

"Sounds good." As soon as Addison makes her departure Violet turns to Naomi on her right and asks, "It's creepy right? I mean something happened."

"Yeah, something." Naomi replies while sipping the mandatory fourth cup of coffee. "This was not the plan." She mumbles to no one in particular.

"Plan?" Cooper asks as he enters the room. "I like plans…secret ones." He shoots a wink over to Violet.

"Oh grow up, Coop. You got anything on that file for me?"

"Uh..yeah. I can, we should talk in private. Confidentiality." He murmurs back. "Plan, Naomi?"

"Yeah. Never mind. Mark was supposed to help and he won't come out of his damn office and Addison is acting all Mary freakin' Poppins like with her spoon full of sugar this morning. Forget it."

"Well, if you need me…I'm in." Cooper adds as he reaches for cup.

"Me too but I need to go deal with her and god help me…I'm going to try and not say anything. I'm going to take a step back and let her be a co-worker, an insane co-worker, but she needs to deal with her own problems." Violet says as she marches from the room.

"Drama." Naomi nods to Pete as he enters.

"I hate drama." He returns pulling the refrigerator door open.

"Oh yeah right. 'Mr. I date half the office'. You thrive on drama." Cooper mentions as he grabs a seat next to Naomi.

"You are supposed to be on my side. Remember?"

"Right, well. I need to get back to work. Someone has to work around here." Naomi throws out before she leaves the room.

"What's got her all upset?" Pete asks as the door swings closed behind her and leaves him watching her retreat down the hall.

Cooper shrugs, "Addison."

"That woman."

"Yup."

"She's sent everyone in a little dance."

"Even you." Cooper leaves grinning to himself.

"She has not." Pete answers to no one but himself and then rapidly gathers his things heading for his office.

**_-----_**

"So, who is the patient?" Violet asks when Addison enters her office sans any type of file or chart.

She begins pacing out of frustration and not being able to articulate what she needs to say, "You haven't seen her before."

"A new patient? I think I could work that in."

"I don't want you to make a file. I…I don't want anyone to know, ok? Can you do that?" She asks taking a seat on the couch. She lays back and kicks her feet up.

Violet is beginning to think that she is treating Addison and takes a seat in the chair and grabs something to write on. "Ok, go on."

"The thing is she's just a child and she shouldn't have to go through this. So I want to make it as easy as possible. I thought through it over and over and I can't come up with another way so you are it. You tell no one." She turns back locking eyes with the curly headed woman four feet from her.

"Yeah, no notes. Got it." She sets down the chart and begins thinking through metaphors that Addison could use to represent herself.

"I'm trying to do right by her. Because she hasn't got anyone anymore. Everyone deserves someone." Violet follows keeping things meticulously locked away in her head.

"So, you'll see her?"

"Absolutely. And Addison, I know what it takes to come forward and say you need help. It won't leave this office."

The taller woman smiles and stands finally thinking that maybe someone can understand where she is coming from. "Thank you. Just thanks Violet. A lot." She heads toward the door.

"Oh, wait. Where are you going?"

"Going to go get the patient."

Violet's astonished face probably gave her away but for good measure her mouth completes the thought, "I thought we were talking about yourself."

"Oh, uhh. No. My niece, Elianna. The birthday party, remember?"

"Yeah. Ok."

Addison begins doing what she does when she has thought that she can't convey- hand gestures. "Me? No, I'm good but she won't talk anymore. She just stopped a few days ago and she wouldn't stop crying last night but she is back to the whole silent treatment thing so I don't know if the weight of the situation caught up with her or if something happened. I was kind of hoping she would talk to you. Like a safe zone sort of thing."

"Right." Violet stops and watches her hand reach for the handle again. "You know, Addison if you ever need anything. Just to talk, no advice given, no professional opinions formed…this door is always open. I'm here and I'm a good listener."

"Well, I would hope so given the career." Addison smirks and disappears letting Violet collapse on her own couch. She doesn't do child psychology. It's different; children are hard which isn't to say that her adult patients are not, but it is just different. She runs through the books she has in the office and realizes that there is nothing of any use. Thinking better of suggesting another therapist more adept with small children, Violet swings her feet up and tries to prepare.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Why are you hiding in your office?" Naomi asks as she breezes into his office.

"Uh, hi I could have had a patient in here." Mark retorts as she grabs a chair in front of him.

"I checked your schedule, you haven't had a patient in hours and you don't have one for the rest of the damn day. Answer the question."

"No reason. I'm not hiding."

"Christ, you are a horrible liar. No wonder Addison knew you were cheating on her."

Mark ignores the fact that when they were in New York, Addison had actually walked in on him and that's how she knew. "I'm not cheating."

"So then you two are still together?" She grows impatient. Taking care of her best friend is absolutely exhausting but someone has to do it. More often than not she just wishes someone would take care of her.

"I don't know."

"Mark, I realize that you are a plastic surgeon but these questions are not difficult. I would like to think that I hired someone who is capable of answering things so simple."

"Well, it's not simple so get out." He huffs throwing open another file. One downside to the private side of things is not having any interns to do your work for you.

"I'm not going anywhere so you better lose that thought. We had a plan, which can't be executed if you are holed up in here like it is D-Day."

"Get out." His anger mounting he attempts to slam the papers around his desk and tosses a pen back in its holder.

"Not a chance in hell."

"You're a bitch today."

"Everyday, welcome to Oceanside Wellness Group Mark. Spill it."

He spends a few seconds coming to terms with the fact that she really isn't going anywhere and he tries to think of the best way to say what happened last night. "I left."

"Left where?"

"I left Addison last night."

"So you aren't together?"

"I don't know."

"Ok, maybe I am missing something here. You left her and yet you don't know if you are together?" She uncrosses her legs fully prepared to whack him upside the head if he needs it.

"I walked out. I went upstairs to see if she was awake because the kid wo-"

She cuts off his use of the word 'kid' because someone needs to train this guy, "Kennedy. She has a name."

He growls, "Yeah whatever. So I went upstairs to get help and she was up there and then I left."

"That's the worst story I have ever heard. Maya's 13 year old friends have more interesting lives."

"Did I say I was done?"

"No."

"Good, zip it. How did Sam deal with you? So I went upstairs and she was holding Ellie and they were crying and Kennedy was crying and I had to get out of there. I don't know what happened."

Naomi stands, not focused on the last sentence and exits his office without another word. The Sam thing is a very touchy subject and while he may or may not be aware of that, he certainly had no place to be talking about it.

**_-----_**

"Hey Addison!" Pete calls out as she steps back onto the floor from the elevator. Her hands are full with one infant and tugging a very reluctant Ellie on her left side. "You need a hand?" He asks as he swoops in and grabs Kennedy.

"Yes. Thanks." She remarks distractedly. "I'll be right back. Can you watch her?"

"Sure." He gives her the reassuring smile he uses with laboring moms and begins to pace the waiting area with the napping baby as she disappears into Violet's office.

"Hey man. Oh…oh!" Cooper mumbles excitedly when he catches a glimpse of Pete. The plan was later explained and he whisks them away toward an exam table declaring for Pete that Addison knows about this.

**_-----_**

"Ok, Elianna this is Dr. Violet Turner. You remember her from your birthday party?" She gets no response and leads her to the couch. She literally has to pick her up and set her on the sofa and then looks back at Violet. "See, you see what I am dealing with here?"

"Yeah." She returns a little unsure of what to make of the situation.

Addison runs her fingers through her dangling tresses and remarks, "I can't keep doing this. I mean the silence is nice and all but I much prefer her all crazy and running around. I have enough to deal with, without this." She exclaims as she points back to the child who is toying with the hem of her skirt. "She doesn't even care to play a part in what she eats or wears. She was all about clothes, well as much as a five year old can care about that stuff and she…she was fine."

"You know just because she isn't talking, it doesn't mean that she can't hear what you are saying about her."

Addison throws her head back and sighs exasperatedly. "Yeah, I know. I know Violet…just help me out here ok? I'll be back in what an hour?"

"Whoa there. This may not be a one time thing."

"What are you talking about? Get to the bottom of this so we can all move on. We need to move on."

Violet smiles when she realizes that the talk is more for her co-worker than the child. "You don't move on just because you chose to. It works with certain things in life but with death Addison, you kind of just have to ride the waves."

"I don't surf."

"Better have Dell teach you."

**_-----_**

Naomi bursts into Sam's office, fully prepared with a long winded speech on why their personal lives need to stop interfering with their professional ones, only to find it empty. She paces ahead and checks out his exam room which is also empty but then the growing group in exam room one catches her eye and she enters. Standing in a circle amidst the screams of an infant are Pete, Cooper, Mark, and Sam. "What is going on in here?"

Mark turns back and merely glares; her answer comes from Pete. "Cooper is just looking over Kennedy. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I have never seen a child this mad before." Sam remarks as he watches Cooper listen intently to her heart. "Look at this Naomi, she's all red in the face and her little fists look like they could punch someone. It's kind of cute."

"Ugh, you find that cute?" Mark asks.

"Sam this isn't a joke. Something could be wrong. God, you are always joking about unfunny things."

"And you are always uptight and have your brain in overdrive."

"Now, now. I am certain that the baby doesn't need a domestic situation on her hands. After all she does have Mark and Addison to deal with." Pete affirms as he slinks his hand in to play with her fingers.

Mark grimaces as he hears their names follow one another and then exit's the room without saying anything.

"Oh, nice work Pete."

"What? I didn't know anything was going on."

"Yeah wouldn't you just love that. Stay away from her. I am dead serious." Sam retorts as Cooper begins finishing up.

**_-----_**

"Move." Addison states as she sees Naomi through the glass of the exam room. "Mark, get out of my way. You left, you made your choice. Now go run free and frolic with the nurses."

He extends his arms so as to not allow her down the hallway. "No."

"What is everyone's deal today? Move or I will get a running start and knock you down."

"Oh, please. I played football in high school. You played some instrument."

"I played several and that is not the point. Get out of the way. I need to talk to Naomi."

"You won't run in those heels." He remarks down toward the black peep toes. "And Naomi is with a patient so you just…you wait in your office."

"You are not my… you aren't my anything and you don't get to tell me what to do." She spins past him and he reaches out grabbing her by the waist. His hands rest firmly on her hips and he turns her back toward him.

"Get your hands off of me."

He walks her backwards and presses her up against the wall before attaching his mouth to hers. His fingertips lightly play with the edge of her shirt that has through the day's events has become untucked on one side. She holds back glaring before giving in and parting her mouth as his tongue slips inside. It isn't rushed and needy like the kisses they shared before. It's more of a languid and relaxed experience as he pushes into her a little harder. He pulls back resting his forehead against hers and searching for her eyes. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

"Yeah."

"I really am… but I don't know if I can deal with that. It-" His chance to fully explain and not sound like the world's biggest asshole is cut short by people filtering out of the exam room followed by the wails of the one and only infant. She shoves him off of her with a look that says they will be talking about that later and makes her way to the group. "What is going on?"

"Nothing." Naomi remarks nonchalantly and heads away from the group followed by Sam.

"I have a patient." Cooper follows along after them, leaving Pete holding the baby and Mark watching down the hall.

"We needed a large group to get her to take a nap?" He offers.

"Try again."

"We all wanted to play with her on our breaks so we figured why not meet in a sterile exam room. It's just as good as any."

"Negative." She snatches the baby from his arms and turns back to Mark waiting for an explanation as Pete scurries off.

"Oh fine. It was my idea."

"This was your idea?"

"Yeah." Mark replies shifting his feet.

"What makes you think that you get a say in what I do with these children? You run around saying that you can handle me and whatever I throw at you all the while not realizing that me is now a package deal. I'm keeping this baby." She motions to her own stomach, "For reasons that I would gladly tell you but since you think you know what's best for everyone and their mother I'll just let you come up with some wacky story to pass along to our co-workers."

"Damn it Addison! You think I don't know? You think I don't know that these kids will probably never get their father back because he is too big of a duchebag to deal with reality? You want to stand there and lecture me on how I don't see that "you" suddenly comes with two kids and the impending one because of my ex-best friend's sperm. I get it! I get that you always wanted kids with him; you made that plain for me. You wanted his child, not mine and now you get your wish. You get whatever the fuck you want." He spews and them heads off towards his office leaving her fuming in the hallway.

**_-----_**

"So Elianna you go to school?" Violet asks as she attempts to break the ice. "I bet you have a lot of fun there. Playing with the kids and stuff." She can't really remember what exactly happens in first grade but leaves off the bit about nap time just in case that doesn't occur anymore.

"Everyone calls you Ellie, can I call you Ellie?" Nothing again.

"Well, Ellie I am Violet and I'm just here if you want to talk about what has been going on. If you want to tell a story or tell me about living at Aunt Addison's house…you know whatever you feel like."

**_-----_**

Addison slams through Naomi's door and throws herself into a seat across from her friend after putting Kennedy down for a nap. It took about thirty minutes but the anger of Mark yelling at her hasn't dissipated. "Nae, care to explain what you were doing with my niece?" She asks sweetly with the disdain dripping off her voice.

She's tired of playing games for today and decides to run with the truth. "I was concerned so I had Cooper look at her."

"Concerned about what?"

"The crying. I'm concerned about all of you. So…I was going to have Cooper look over Kennedy and have Violet talk to Elianna while you were with a patient. It was all my idea and I never thought you would agree so I did it behind your back. So go, yell. I'm ready."

"Oh, Nae."

"Yell already; get it out of your system."

"I think I already did." She sighs slumping back into the chair and placing her hand subconsciously over her stomach.

"You yelled at Mark?"

"Yeah."

"Nice work Addie. He is trying his ass off for you."

"He left me last night."

"I'm sure he has an explanation." Naomi toys with her paperweight and looks toward the window.

"He said he can't do it. That's his explanation. So I guess it is over." She shrugs and tries to act like it doesn't bother her. "So, Kennedy is colicky. Find out anything I didn't know?"

"You knew."

"No, I got my job by sleeping around. I know a thing or two about babies Naomi."

"Nah, she's fine. Angry at the world but fine. Sounds like a chip off the old block."

Addison smiles recounting a brief encounter with her deceased sister and remarks, "Elianna is more my style and if this kid grows up anything like her mother than well, god help her father."

"Speaking of Pierce." Naomi starts. "Find him?"

"No. He's vanished which I just great because I don't have a life or anything." Naomi starts into a fit of laughter. "What? Nae…what the hell?"

"It's just when you came here you were bored to tears and now you are so busy you cry. Funny."

"Oh you are such a…a whore. That's not funny."

She stops and purses her lips together. "Sorry, we just…you know we haven't had a lot of time together lately with this whole mess. I kind of miss you. I need you, wingman."

"I can't be your wingman if I'm pregnant. It defeats the whole purpose. The fat girl can not-"

"You better be fat too. I am not even kidding. As soon as the morning sickness disappears I am feeding you until you burst."

"Naomi!" Addison exclaims. She is happy for the break in banter. The ability to joke around even if it involves ignoring life for the time being. She stands and walks over to her friend. "I've missed you too. Mark is a great hugger but a horrible conversationalist. I still need you."

They embrace briefly and when Naomi pulls back she sees the short lived smile on her friend's face disappear. "What?"

"I think I broke up with Mark."

"Ice cream tonight?" She grins.

"Ugh… don't talk about food. Just, you want to come over tonight? I'm having a good day. Well not really but I don't feel like I will be a sobbing mess tonight so you should come by. We'll watch stupid girl movies and talk about the many, many reasons why men suck."

"Ok."

"Addison?" Violet asks as she peeks her head into the room.

"Yeah?"

"I need you, now." With that she turns and head back to her office. Naomi gives Addison the once over before waving her on and smiling that they finally have plans.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"You really think this is the best idea Derek?" Richard asks as he shakes his head. He is currently pacing his office, stuck deep in thought about potentially losing his best surgeon. His chosen replacement.

"I'll only be off for two weeks. I have things to get in order. Addison…she- I need her to take me seriously Richard. She won't listen if I just fly down there. I need to have things in order."

"I don't even think that you know what that means. A child Derek! A child is responsibility. You don't walk away when you get bored. You can't just set it down when you get paged and leave Addison with it. You can't…you can't. Derek I can't give you chief when I am ready if you have a newborn. I don't plan on being here forever and retirement sounds really nice right about now."

"So it's all about you?" Derek asks irritated as he reaches for the door handle.

"No. You need to realize what you are doing."

"I made a child. I made a baby with the woman I once loved…" His voice trails off as a smile paves his face. "A woman that if I thought about it, I do still love. It's Addie. And I. And our baby. I get it." He walks out shutting the door roughly and preparing for the next two weeks off.

First thing on the list is a house. He doesn't even really care if it is in the woods or not at this point because babies need space and room to grow, and a trailer just won't cut it. He's made lists and then has lists for his lists. Enlisting the help of Torres who is more than happy at the prospect of Addison returning he heads off to do some shopping.

**_-----_**

"What did you do!" Addison screams as she follows Violet in to find Ellie clutching a pillow with tears running down her face.

"I didn't do anything. She still won't talk so I was just…speaking to her about school and this started. She won't let me touch her and frankly I am a little uncomfortable with that anyway so I came and got you."

She scoops up the child who instinctively turns into her chest and claws at the material of the shirt on her shoulders. The sobs quell and she hiccups as Addison tries to balance holding a five year old in three and half inch heels. "What did you say? Exactly word for word, tell me."

"I don't remember." Violet shrugs. "I was just talking, it wasn't important and I thought about it trying to find the trigger but there's nothing."

"Addison, maybe you should take Ellie and…uh head home?" Naomi asks as she watches the scene astonished. She never thought her friend would actually come to Violet on her own. Now, though, she is certain that she will never do it again.

"Yeah. Can you have Dell clear my schedule Nae?"

"Consider it done." She gives a slight shake of her head when Violet opens her mouth to speak.

"Ellie, I need to put you down. You have to walk." She attempts to detach the child but Ellie clasps her hands in a death lock around Addison's neck and her feet try to wrap around her hips. "Elianna, I can't walk like this. If I put you down we can go home." She tries again but is met with such force that the two nearly topple over to the ground.

"Addison, I'll take her." Pete offers and walks over to her side.

"What is he doing in here?" Violet asks.

"I'm right here you know? Ellie, come on. I'll hold you." He tries to undo her hands but is met by a fierce scream and more sniffles. "Ok, or not. Good luck with that." He remarks as he vanishes from the room just as soon as he appeared.

"That was helpful." She pulls the girl from her hips and bends over to set her feet on the ground but is countered with the realization that the red headed monster will not release her grip around her neck. She sighs and stands back up, pulling Ellie closer and whispers, "Get Mark."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Thanks." Addison mouths as Mark lays Ellie down on her bed. After finally hunting him down they found that Elianna was more than pleased to have him to cling to instead of her Aunt. He leads her from the room and they stand in the finally silent hallway. Her eyes dart furiously trying to focus anywhere other than on him.

"I should go." He answers filling the void between them.

"Yeah." She waits ten seconds after he doesn't move and clears her throat. "I'm…uh. I'm sorry…again."

He waits for the explanation that he knows is coming. "Ok."

"It's a lot to ask and a lot to expect out of someone. I should be more understanding with the fact that it is hard for you. Sometimes even rocks crumble from time to time."

"I didn't crumble." He growls back at her.

"I saw that tear." She mocks as he steps forward and pulls her into his arms.

"I hate when you cry. And then there was crying everywhere and I couldn't do anything right so I just thought I should leave. I wasn't thinking."

"We're difficult." He nods and tucks a lose strand of hair behind her ear before pulling back.

She bites down on the corner of her lip and nervously fidgets with her hands before finding the courage to speak. "I can't have children." As soon as it leaves her mouth it feels so final; so much more real when her own lips have to say it.

"What?"

"When I came down to L.A. after the whole Karev thing…I came to find a donor Mark. I was ready to have a baby I just didn't have the man to do it with. Naomi told me that I only had two eggs left… two. I'm not supposed to be able to have children."

"Oh." He whispers back as she leans against the wall.

"I have to keep it. I may never get another chance, I mean I am not even supposed to have this one so unless God is playing some cruel joke on Addison again and I miscar-"

"Don't say that." He scolds as he tries to wrap his mind around what has been going on in her life.

"Anyway that night with Derek before I left-"

"I don't want to hear about it."

"I have to say it." She replies and pushes forward. "It didn't mean anything. It was the final chapter in our story. The last nail in our…coffin. I didn't think anything would happen. Certainly not this."

"Yeah." He shakes his head and slumps down against the wall stretching his legs across the hallway when she switches sides and takes a seat next to him.

"I can't ask for forgiveness. I shouldn't have to. We weren't together. We were decidedly over."

"You decided that all on your own." He points out and then grabs her hand as she continues.

"Yes, I did. I thought I made the right choice. You going to prove me wrong for once?" She grins as he turns to her.

"You are always right though. I can't do this with you working against me."

"I won't."

"You keep asking me if I want this, if I can do this. I think…." He trails off as he stands up. "I think that the better question is if you want me or if you need me." He steps down the stairs leaving her in thought and when he reaches the front door he feels like he just hit the self destruct button again.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Vi!" Cooper calls out when he sees her heading towards the elevators.

"Yeah?"

"You have been busy all I day. I wanted to talk to you about…you know."

She sighs, trying not to think about the colossal failure she feels like and replies, "You headed home. We can talk in the elevator."

He isn't headed home. He isn't even close to being done for the day but he's not about to tell her that as he steps in and the doors close. "So…"

"What'd you find?"

He props the file open in his arms and tries to convey the main issues. "Well, she died on the table six times in three and half hours."

"Ok."

"They pumped her full of drugs but it wasn't working. The codes got closer and closer and they decided not to risk it anymore and pulled Kennedy out."

"So why does that have Addison in arms"

"I'm guessing because they stopped trying. I mean, they were probably right. Definitely right to get the baby out but-"

Violet turns to him as he face drops. "They could have saved her and they chose not to?"

"Not necessarily. She could've gone either way and I mean the chances were very slim that she would have pulled through this. The trauma was-"

"Addison thinks she could have saved her." Violet acknowledges as Cooper closes the file and slumps against the wall.

"More than likely. Surgeons have a complex like that. It's not even her specialty but-"

"Oh man."

"Yeah."

**_-----_**

"Ugh! I'm huge already!" Addison yells out to her room to Naomi.

"You are not." Naomi retorts taking a seat on the bed next to Kennedy who has remarkably calmed in the last two weeks.

Addison emerges shirtless and points to the small swell of her stomach. "11 weeks! 11. People do not get this." She pokes at herself again. "At 11 weeks! How can I gain weight when I can't hold anything down?" She grumbles something about being injected with Satan's spawn when Naomi starts laughing and throws the shirt on the bed next to her toward her friend.

"Shut up. You didn't get this at 11 weeks. How long did it take for you to start showing?"

"Ok, first of all you aren't really showing. You can't even discern a difference when you have clothes on so stop mourning the loss of your flat stomach because it is all downhill from here."

"How long?" She dares again.

"14-ish." Naomi replies and then ducks as the ball of shirt comes flying back toward her head. She chuckles as Addison disappears into the closet again and comes back out wearing a black dress of sorts. "Oh, a dress. You are such a whiner. Look." She points to the mirror on the left. "You look exactly the same."

"Do not. Stop feeding me lies." Addison states as she gives a quick spin watching her reflection before heading back to find shoes.

In the last two weeks the only good thing that has happened is the disappearing case of colic. Now only crying about twice as often as a normal newborn, Kennedy has gained a few ounces, nowhere near where she should be but they are taking the small gains in stride. Most days are still hard and Ellie outright refuses to speak. After pestering her enough the only that will happen is tears. Naomi has watched Addison try to stand up for everyone in her growing family during the days and then held her hand as she falls apart at night. Nothing quells her anger and fear and no one can comfort her as she voices her guilt over and over every night.

Mark has done his part to be scarce after never receiving an answer to his question and tries spending most of his time at the hospital to avoid seeing the thing he lost. He attends the morning meetings staring blankly at the cases in front of him. He responds dully to the questions asked of him, refuses to volunteer to work with anyone else and hides out in his office until a patient stops by or he is operating.

He spends his night in the sleeping bag in vain hope that she will show up on his doorstep and say that she wants him. His worst fears have been mounting with each passing day and now the 15th day of being without her leaves him with a dire choice after learning some crucial information from Sam.

**_-----_**

"You really think that this is a good idea?" Naomi asks as she drives the three passengers to the cemetery.

"I'm out of ideas Nae. The therapist that I found after Violet told me to wait it out. Nothing is getting better." She takes a deep breath and clutches the morbidly red roses in her hand. "I have to at least try this."

They arrive to the graveyard where Naomi pulls Kennedy from her car seat and wraps a warm blanket around her back while Addison works on getting Elianna out of the car. She hops to the ground and clings to her Aunt's hand as they march along in a row on their way to the headstone.

The neatly green manicured lawn causes Ellie to sneeze and the sound breaks the otherwise silent grounds. They traipse along as Addison pushes away the flashbacks of that day. Of everything to do with her sister. It's not right to not think of her but it is the only way she can get through her days. She refuses to acknowledge that she ever had a sister and somehow it makes it all a little easier to deal with. Easier to get up with the never ceasing screams at two in the morning. Easier to handle the silence of the now clingy five year old on her left side. She watches as her black heels and Ellie's black Mary Janes occasionally hit the dirt path together. Three steps for her every one and half she counts and then suddenly they have arrived to the scene of their respective demise.

Naomi clears her throat and signals for Addison to make this quick as Kennedy begins to fuss in her arms. She takes a deep breath, kneels next to the headstone, trying not to envision the body beneath the surface as something that was so commonplace in her life.

"Ellie, do you know where we are?" She waits and then finally gets a shake of the head. Handing her the roses she attempts to explain, "This is somewhere that you come when you…" She trails off because she doesn't want to tell her that this is where her mother is lying. That would only bring up the whole sequence of her never coming back and then explaining why we put people in the ground isn't something she wants to deal with either.

"This is a place where you can come and talk to Mommy." She swallows hard as her niece's eyes flash with confusion. "It's sort of like a memorial. A special place to remember her at. You can say whatever you want here. Tell her about your days at school or when you're older about how work is. Anything at all, ok?"

She gets a nod and reaches for her hand to bring the roses to the ground. She guides the small fingers as the prop the flowers up against the concrete head stone. Tears involuntarily sneak out as she fights for dominance over her ever changing emotions. She dabs at her eyes and stands waiting for Ellie to grab her hand. She doesn't move and Addison deftly unsure of how to proceed grabs her hand and begins to turn away with the sad knowledge that this didn't do anything either.

Her voice squeaks because it hasn't been used recently and her words fumble. "Claire says that I don't get a Mommy anymore."

The two adults turn to each other and try to come up with a silent answer but it is Naomi who comes to the rescue when Addison loses the battle with her emotions again and has to look away. "You don't get your other Mommy but you can have a new one. You don't lose this one…she just isn't here. But you can still talk to her whenever you want and she's looking out for you."

The bleary eyed five year old turns to her faux Aunt confused and asks how. Naomi trips over an answer and gets, "I just know. I knew your Mommy and she would want you to be with your Aunt Addison." She points to the taller woman who has her back turned and her head down. "And Ellie, your Mommy would want you to be happy. She would want you to talk, to play, to learn, and to grow up big and strong."

"Claire says I was bad and mommies and daddies get mad and go away when we are bad."

Naomi skips over the missing logic in that argument and replies, "This is not your fault. You didn't do anything bad and neither did your sister, these things they just happen." The concept is tough to grasp at forty let alone five and she returns to rest her hand on Addison's shoulder when Ellie responds, "Ok."

"Ok?" Addison asks as she turns around wiping at her tears.

"Yeah." Ellie shrugs and then grabs her hand again.

**_-----_**

"That's it! My life has been hell because of some stupid child named Claire!" Addison screams as they arrive home and Ellie runs to her room to play with the toys she has been neglecting. "You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

"At least there is a reason Addison. Think of it that way."

"I'm going to kill Charles. Gut him and hang him like a deer."

"I don't think that makes sense, do you hang deer? Who is Charles?"

"The headmaster. The bastard who kicked her out for not participating. This is his fault. Who tells a kid that?" She demands of her friend who flops down onto the couch.

"A kid who has a bad life. They are only five Addie, who knows what happened. Be thankful it is over. She seems, well she seems fine now."

Addison clenches her fists and kicks off her heels. "I…just. All that work. All that therapy and all I needed was you. I can't do any of it right."

"You are doing a great job."

"Oh yeah, if it was just me I would have been living with a mute until she was teenager. Unbelievable. I give up. I give up on life. You win!" She shouts at the ceiling. She tosses herself down in the chair and fixes her head upward. "I'm working so hard for nothing, Nae. Nothing."

"You have two pretty great kids."

"Who hate me and have a father out there somewhere."

"They do not. You have another on the way."

"Who makes me feel like a whale and we aren't even out of the first trimester yet. I do not want to talk about that right now."

"I know this isn't the best time." Naomi mentions as she takes a peek at her watch. "But I have to pick up Maya from violin practice. I will call you tomorrow, ok?"

"Yeah."

Naomi pulls the door open to find Mark on the first step fiddling with his jacket. "Mark?"

"Oh, hi. Sam said you guys were gone. I was just taking a walk."

"It doesn't look like you are walking. Addison! Visitor!"

"How is she?" He spits quickly.

"She could really use a shoulder right now." Naomi replies and then heads toward her car.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Sam said you went to Reagan's-"

"Yeah we did. Listen, you either have to come in or leave. I don't want them in the house alone."

"Ok." He stands and heads inside. Following her into the living room he drapes his coat over the back of the chair. "You never answered my question."

"What?" She says as she spins around.

"I asked you if you wanted me or you needed me and then you didn't say anything for the last two weeks."

"I didn't think you wanted me to answer you." She shrugs nonchalantly before taking a seat on the couch.

"Why would I not want you to answer me?" He asks dropping next to her.

"Because I…I need you but I also want you and I didn't think you would want to hear that."

"I want to hear everything you have to say if you'll have me." He pulls her hands from her lap and lightly plays with them as she grows nervous.

"Yeah?" She smiles brightly when he leans in to kiss his answer upon her light lips. He tilts forward and lightly places his lips next to her ear. "These last two weeks nearly killed me."

"I think I am already dead so-." She replies before he covers her mouth with his. Fingertips slowly graze their way from her thigh upward to her hips and then lightly trail along her stomach as he sneaks his tongue along her lower lip. Suddenly he pulls back and she gasps, "What!"

He flatly places his palm over her stomach and then rubs upward and back down. "You are-"

"I know. I don't want to talk about it." She says grabbing his hand off of her and locking fingers as her mouth moves back to his.

"It's cute." He snickers between chaste kisses and is promptly met with a sharp slap to his side.

"Shut up."

**_-----_**

* * *


	20. Reflection of a time that's lost

A/N: I am pretty sure I said something about this being up days ago but end story- I suck. I'd blame work but it's not plausible. I'd blame school work but I never do most of it so I just suck. Oh, and I brought back the angst...if it was ever missing. Enjoy!

**_-----_**  
_A silhouette passing by in front of your eyes.  
Someone walking through the crowd,  
That's just her body, it's not her.  
_

_Just a reflection of a time that's lost.  
Memories painted as the contours of,  
Someone you once would have died for.  
...  
A sound makes it through the constant noise.  
A voice so familiar,  
But the words they're not the same,  
As the ones she used to say.  
The sentences they're not how  
They used to be,  
Though still as beautiful,  
They're not meant for you._  
-Jeniferever, "Swimming Eyes"

**_-----_**

"Addie…" Mark grumbles as he nudges her shoulder.

"No, it's your turn." She mumbles back, releasing her leg from it's usual spot in between his and rolling onto her back.

"Hhhmm…Addison." He reaches over and pulls her back against his chest while grabbing a quick glance at the clock. 2:37 am.

"Mark! You promised." Snapping she allows him to pull her back and wedges her head under his chin.

"It was not the baby. You were doing that thing again." He takes his free arm and loops it around to her face, wiping away the moisture on her cheek.

"Oh, sorry." She lifts her hand to his and brushes the tears away while cuddling back against him harder.

**_-----_**

"It's okay if you want to talk about it. I get the whole nightmare thing." Mark states as he watches her brush her teeth.

"It wasn't a nightmare. I don't even remember, so drop it already." She swishes and then rinses and then ends up running back to the toilet.

Walking up behind her and pulling her hair back he nods and lets her finish their normal morning routine. When she finishes breathless and leans against his chest she mutters, "I hate being pregnant."

"I never ever thought I would hear you say that." He kisses the top of her head and then escorts her up.

After another excited round of morning problems they manage to get Elianna to school, ignoring all questions about her well being, and into the door of the conference room before collapsing with their heads on the table before everyone else arrives. "This is exhausting." She murmurs covering her eyes with her free hand.

"I didn't think a five year old could talk that much. I almost like it better when she was a mute."

"Mark-"

"I know, I know. I said almost."

"I should-"

"No you really shouldn't." He counters, knowing full well where she is going with this.

"I have to."

"No, you don't. Leave it alone, she is fine now. No sense in dragging up the issues." He wants to play no role in pulling her out of a screaming match with the headmaster.

"Dragging up what?" Cooper asks as he saunters into the room, coffee in hand.

"Nothing." They both reply looking longingly at his cup. Since Addison can't have coffee she decided that it no longer had a place in her cupboards and Mark was definitely feeling the wrath.

"You guys look like shit."

"Thanks, Nae." Addison replies lifting her head up and trying to focus on the files in front of her.

"Ellie still talking?" She checks everyday and even thought it has only been a week she likes to check in and make things are going as smoothly as possible.

"Yup."

"Good, well let's get down to business."

Sam and Violet wander in within the next few minutes and the day is discussed at length, lending Addison and Violet to wherever they need to be because their schedules are mostly empty. Mark has a surgery at 3, leaving Addison on her own for picking up Elianna and sorting out what to have for dinner. This is her main concern, not the patients. The patients she could handle in her sleep.

**_-----_**

She snaps her gloves off disposing them in the receptacle next to her and flashes a quick smile before assuring Ms. Thaten that everything is progressing nicely.

"I'm sorry, I hope you don't mind me asking…but how far along are you?" She shifts against the exam table watching her doctor's face drop.

"Almost 14 weeks." She smiles again, not because she wants to but because she is supposed to.

"Oh, wow. I'm 20."

"I know I'm your doctor." Addison gives her a wink and tries to remain professional while quelling the fear that everyone can now tell she is pregnant.

"Right. Sorry. I just…you look great. I wish I would have looked like that. I just look fat." She drops her head and plays with the gown covering her knees.

"You don't look fat. Hey, look at me. Good, now you are growing a child. If you happen to gain weight, which you need to, than no one gets to say that you are fat. Alright?" It's a stock answer after dealing with insecure about to-be mothers for years.

"Yeah, yeah. Just a little pregnancy freak out." She takes a deep breath. "Ok. Hormones, I tell you- Oh, well I guess you get it."

She gives a little chuckle and reaches for the door handle. "That I do."

**_-----_**

"It's just every night with these dreams or whatever it is. Is that normal?" Mark asks reaching for another cup of coffee. He has been forced to stock up while at work. He attempted to stop a few days ago but the headache was borderline suicidal so he ran out and grabbed a cappuccino and vowed never to experiment with caffeine again.

"It's probably nothing. Does she talk about them?" Violet asks nearly tripping over a chair on her way to the counter.

"Whoa there Violet, god you are almost about as clumsy as Addison."

"Addison is a surgeon. She isn't clumsy."

"Ah, that's where you'd be surprised. She's all calm and collected guiding that scalpel but she almost always trips over the rug in the front hall."

Violet crinkles her nose trying to follow as to how the long legged beauty could be such a klutz. "Why not throw out the rug then?"

"Tried that. Something about completing the décor. I gave up. So, the dreams." He finds that he easily gets sidetracked with the therapist. Having been to one for many years he is more than at ease speaking to her and may be the only one in the office not taking the occasional pot shot at her profession. Pete on the other hand is an entirely different story.

"Well, does she talk about them? Ever mention them to you?"

"I ask but she says she doesn't remember."

"Then, perhaps she doesn't remember."

His cup clatters to the counter in frustration. "She does. I know she does. I can tell when she is lying and this is…something."

"You're gonna have to wait it out. I mean, you could push her on it but I have a feeling that you'd be met with resistance."

"I'd be sleeping on the front porch without my coat is where I'd be." He murmurs grabbing the cup again.

"She seems okay. I mean comparatively speaking."

"Addison is a beautiful actress. Very talented." He notes as he slips out the door to find her for lunch.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Addie?" He calls out knocking on her office door. He finds her curled into her office chair with her face to one side unmistakenably asleep. Taking a few quick paces he brushes the hair out of her eyes and turns back to the door.

"Hey." She calls out as his hand reaches the handle.

"Oh, hey. Go back to sleep. I'll just grab lunch on my own on the way to the hospital."

"No, it's ok. I'll just grab my purse." Her eyes dart around the room. "I think I lost it."

"You left it in the conference room this morning which is a pretty good considering you left it at home yesterday."

"Yeah. Ok, let me go grab it real fast." She stands too quickly and ends right back in her seat. "That's getting old."

"You just gotta learn how to slow it down speed racer."

"Haha very funny." She teeters forward again. "Ok, there we go."

**_-----_**

"What are you doing with Kennedy?" The other man ignores him and causes Mark to unwillingly leave his post waiting for Addison and drift over. "Pete, what are you doing? She is supposed to be getting used to daycare."

"They called, said she wouldn't stop screaming and that they couldn't take her back unless she calmed down." He hands her over and Mark takes a deep breath trying to remember how to do everything right. "Why didn't anyone pick up their phones except me?"

"I was with a patient."

"And Addison?"

"Was maybe asleep at her desk."

"Get a picture?"

Mark breaks into a smile, finally feeling some sort of kindred spirit with the man and replies, "No. I should've though. Man, I am losing my mind right along with her."

"You are losing your touch." He points to the baby. "You've gone soft."

"Hey, you don't know me. I could've been soft from the beginning."

"Doubt it. Hey, you want to grab a beer a little later in the week and catch the game? I need to do something other than get raped by Sam and Coop at poker."

"Poker?"

"You play?"

"Oh, most definitely."

"Want in? Say tomorrow?"

"Absolutely. Oh, wait I guess I need to check with Addison but then yeah. Probably."

"Check with me about what?" She asks reappearing sans purse again.

"Poker night." Pete replies and watches as she tries to take over for Mark. Nothing seems to work so they give up and start talking over the wailing infant.

"Oh, umm… Yeah sure. Go, have fun."

"You sure?" He isn't really positive that leaving her alone for longer than an hour is a good idea and he needs to make certain that it is on a day where she has the energy to handle the girls.

"Yeah, you should have fun."

"Well then. I'm in. Prepare to lose more money than you make quack."

"We will see about that. And, uh…if you two are interested I have a few herbal remedies for colic. Massage therapy, chiropractic realignment?"

"Hell no. I mean…no thanks. We've got this. Right baby?"

Addison looks around confused. "I'm sorry her or me? You are going to have to get a different pet name because that's just confusing and yes Pete I think we can handle this."

"It gets worse before it gets better. Call me if you change your mind." He stalks off to find another patient and leaves the two discussing things.

**_-----_**

"She looks like you." Mark states as he makes his way into the living room after a long day of patients and face lifts.

Addison nearly chokes on the words but manages to get out, "Well my sister and I looked a lot alike so…yeah." She continues rubbing light circles along the infant's onesie clad stomach as her legs hold steady enough to support the baby cradled by them.

"Sorry." He mutters when her face drops. Finding it funny how the simplest of remarks can make its way full circle and bring her pain he calls upstairs for Ellie.

She comes bounding down, skipping over steps and latches onto his legs urging to be picked up. "Hey Mark!"

"Hello to you too."

"How was work?" She offers in a most serious tone and begins to giggle as he tickles her sides causing her to squirm. He lifts her well above his head jostles her for a few seconds before bringing her back down to the ground. It is much easier for him to interact with the one that can speak as opposed to the one who hates the world so when they use man to man defense he always takes Ellie.

"Work was work. Ok kid, listen up." He states tugging on one of her braids that is unraveling. "I'm going over to Sam's tonight. You remember him?" She nods. "Well, I am going over there so it is just the girls tonight. You be good for Aunt Addison ok?"

She crinkles her nose and turns to look at her aunt and sister. "You really have to go?"

"I really do, after dinner though. What do you feel like?"

"China!"

He laughs at the inappropriate terminology quickly deciding that this is the coolest kid he has ever met and corrects her, "Chinese. Now come here." He lifts her back up and zooms into the living room trying to impersonate an airplane. "Hey Addison? Chinese?"

"Order whatever you guys want. I'm not in the mood for anything other than crackers." She lifts the sleeping baby and places her against her chest taking a deep breath.

**_-----_**

"This goes away right?" He asks her after dinner. Leaving the windows open to air out the house he notices when she slinks out the room and returns to the couch when Elianna finally gives into doing her homework.

"What goes away? The kids, I am afraid never."

"No, the morning sickness. It doesn't last."

"Depends. Some women have it all the way through, not as bad unless it is hyperemesis gravidarum, then we'll have an issue but-"

"You have that?" He asks concerned as she slides the blanket up around her chin.

"I don't think so. It gets better."

"Doesn't feel like it."

"No, definitely does not feel like it." He lifts her forward and climbs in behind her for a few minutes before he has to leave. He drops a kiss on the crown of her head and lightly begins stroking the red strands backwards as they both succumb to their own thoughts.

He breaks the silence first, "Are you sure you want me to go?"

"Yeah, one of us should have some fun and you are stuck dealing with me all the time. You should go."

"I'm here because I want to be." He affirms tilting her head up for eye contact.

"I know but still it's just right next door and you have to stop treating me like I am going to fall apart at a moment's notice." She pulls her head back down and snuggles deeper into his chest hoping that he doesn't leave her despite the protests.

"Addison, you do break at a moment's notice."

"I do not."

"You cry in your sleep. You cry yourself to sleep. You leave exam rooms crying. Last night you saw something on the sidewalk and you were crying when I turned around."

She doesn't mention that she caught a glimpse of someone who looked like her sister and there are times where she swears that she can hear Reagan saying something. It's a tone in someone's voice or a certain word said and that's all it takes to send her over the edge again. She doesn't point out for him that there are times, usually when she is half awake, when she can't remember why she has kids screaming at her and then when the reality settles in it is all too much. "Well, if you can't handle it than leave. You know where the door is."

"Whoa now, just a second. I was simply stating the facts. I'm not going anywhere, except to Sam's to kick some serious ass at poker."

"Yeah." She murmurs burying her head against the warmth of his chest. She takes stock in the rhythmic beating of his heart and the respiratory sounds that mean he is alive. It's the little things that keep her going and she finds herself to be a bit pathetic when she realizes that she has noticeably improved since he moved in a few weeks ago.

**_-----_**

He stumbles back into the house at about three a.m. trying not to remark over how good it felt to be out and with the guys. Sometimes testosterone is needed. He grins fingering the cash he managed to stock pile into his pocket but his good mood vacates the room when he finds her on the couch whimpering in her sleep. He watches as she tosses and the tears stream down her face in an uncontrolled pattern.

Thinking better of waking her he takes a seat in the chair across from her and observes the dazed struggle. He stares until he can't take it anymore and then drops onto his knees next to the couch and nudges her. "Addie." She tosses away from him as her trembling fingers clutch the blanket on her chest. "Addie, wake up. Please wake up."

Her eyes bolt open and she gasps trying to fill her lungs with air. Suddenly Mark comes into her line of vision and pulls her forward wrapping an arm around her waist to help her up the stairs. He mutters on about dreams and how she needs to talk about them but all she can focus on is his stench. The smell of cigars, scotch, and dirty cards overwhelm her senses and she begins pushing forward without him.

"Slow down." He calls after her.

"You smell, shower before you get into bed."

He tries not to laugh as he turns the shower on and moves his exhausted body into the steam. Wrapping a towel around himself he emerges from the room to find her stuck in the same scenario as before. He doesn't bother going through the process of waking her before tugging on a pair for boxers and climbing in on the opposite side of the bed. Her legs twist in between his and she instinctually pushes back as he checks to make sure that Kennedy has been put to bed next to them. He smiles when the wide eyes of the infant stare back at him from the basinet and gulps when she opens her mouth to scream.

Untangling himself he trips his way across the room and grabs the baby.

"That was a dirty trick. Letting me get into bed before you started up." He mutters to the infant as they make their way downstairs in quest of food.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Eat, please eat." He urges twisting the nipple of the bottle across her lips as she continues on in a fit of anger.

Ellie rumbles into the kitchen rubbing her eyes and with hair sticking out in every direction. "Make her stop."

"Trying here." He notes as the child slips into the chair at the table and drops her head onto the surface covering her ears. "Why don't you go back to bed?"

"Can't sleep with that!" She shouts back over the cries, pointing at her sister.

"Me either." He paces slowly dragging his feet along the wood of the floor and muttering nonsense like it will actually do some good. Giving up he takes a seat next to Elianna and sets the bottle on the table. She nearly rolls her eyes when she looks up and sticks her fingers in her ears to block the noise. They spend the greater portion of ten minutes basking in the wails before Mark comes up with a solution. "Come here." He motions to Ellie when he starts walking into the living room. He instructs her where to sit and how to hold her arms to support the infant before carefully placing her in her sister's lap and moving to take a seat next to her.

"I don't like her, why do I have to hold her?" She whines.

"Because you are her sister and this is what sisters do." He keeps the 'I think' to himself because he really doesn't know; he doesn't have any siblings. Seconds later the cries die out and Kennedy's eyes dry as she finds her sister above her. In the almost seven weeks of existence Elianna has never once taken an interest and has yet to hold her before this moment. Addison mentioned something about Ellie blaming the fall of her world on the infant but Mark never took it seriously. "I think she likes you." He reaches over to the baby's hand and begins playing with her fingers as Ellie sits frozen.

"I still don't like her." She huffs and then relaxes when gurgling noises begin to emit from the small being below.

"It's your sister, I'm pretty sure you don't have to like her. But you do have to love her and you need to start helping us out a little ok? You are a big girl now. Aunt Addie and I can't do this all on our own and she really likes you."

"I don't wanna."

"Not a choice." He tells her tapping her nose as her eyes drift closed again.

**_-----_**

"Man, last night was amazing." Cooper continues on with the account of the evening like they weren't all there. Gathered in the break room sits Sam reading through something, Pete sipping down some juice, Cooper cracked out on life, and Mark drinking coffee like it is going out of style.

"I fully intend on getting my money back next week." Pete states setting the cup down and letting his eyes drift to Mark who almost overfills his cup. "You alright there Sloan?"

"Uh…yeah. Need to get some sleep but I'm good. Especially since I totally cleaned you all out."

"I held my own." Sam counters looking for the paper in the mess of the counter.

Cooper starts laughing and remarks, "Yeah for like ten minutes. Dude, you look wiped."

"Kids." Mark continues.

"Sounds like woman problems." Pete remarks.

"I do not have woman problems. We have a baby who outright refuses to sleep when it is dark…or light outside for that matter. But last night, I got Ellie to hold her; you guys should have seen this-"

"Oh hell, he has turned into Sam circa Maya's three year old days."

"Here we go."

"I wasn't like that!"

"Like what?" Mark asks.

"In total awe of everything his daughter did. Everything had a story; I thought I was going to commit suicide before I heard the end of it." Cooper states.

"It's not like that." Mark says suddenly feeling defensive without warning.

"Yeah sure man, hopefully you can escape your cage long enough next week to get out and play with us."

"I'll be there. I have a life."

"Do you?" Pete asks leaving the room.

**_-----_**

"Maybe we should go out on a date next week sometime." Mark suggests dropping into her office with the lunch she forgot this morning.

"What?" Addison asks peering over her reading glasses.

"A date. You, me, dinner maybe a movie if you can stay awake."

"Oh, I don't know. We have the girls and maybe we should just stay in."

He stands and makes his way over to her chair and begins lightly massaging her shoulders. "Addison, it's ok to go out and have fun."

She moans out loud as he finds the knot on the right side and mutters, "I know."

"Well, Naomi can watch the girls and we'll go out. It's settled."

She bites down hard on her lip and stiffening her body. "What?" He asks noting the change in body language.

"You really want to take me out?"

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

"It's just every single one of my patients asks me when I'm due…already. I've been trying to hide it but they all notice. I'm turning into the fat, pregnant, clichéd ob/gyn."

He squats down and spins her around so they are facing. "Addison, I think you are beautiful and I like to believe that I count for something."

"You count."

"Good. You should also know that while this whole another man's baby thing is hard I still find you wildly attractive and if I wasn't serious about sticking to our no sex policy I would've taken you on this desk already." He taps the wood for emphasis and watches as her cheeks glow warm.

"Really?" She asks her lips turning upward into a grin.

He kisses her so hard that she nearly tilts too far back in the chair and when she emerges breathless she more than has her answer. She pulls him back down by his collar and makes quick work of slipping her tongue into his mouth. His hands wander up her thighs, daring to edge under the hem of her skirt. Her fingers brush his scalp and then move to his biceps and she can't help but remark over how long it's been since someone kissed her like this; like they wanted to, live they loved her. It's almost good enough to force her heart into feeling but not quite.

"Maybe you could lift the sex ban next week for our date."

"Nah, I like to watch you squirm. Oh, and I have poker night again next week if that's cool. By the time I get done with these guys we'll have enough saved away to put the kids through college and med. school."

She doesn't bother to add in that they already do because he talks about kids, first of all plural, and second of all like he means it. "Fine with me."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Derek?" Pete asks trailing into the waiting area for his next patient. The dark haired man rotates around and offers a bright smile.

"Hey Pete."

"Hey man, what are you doing in town again so soon?"

"Dropped by to see Addison, is she in today?" He peeks around but realizes that she has her blinds closed in her office.

"She's in. She's only missed like half a day of work or something insane." He's long since given up on chasing her. Not long after Mark got into town he decided that she wasn't interested and he has tried to back off.

"That's Addie."

"So they say. Check out her office. I have a patient but if you are in town for a while give me call."

"Alright." He leaves the kid behind the receptionist's desk and carefully places his palm against her door handle. It's been a lot of sleepless nights without her but he has finally gotten a house squared away. The gnawing feeling in his heart sent him down here a little sooner than he had planned but just the same he feels like he can win her over. He takes a deep breath and pushes the door forward squeaking out her name.

Addison pulls her head off the stack of files that are serving as a pseudo pillow in a very aggravated manner. She plainly stated that she needed twenty minutes alone. Flat out done in, she had just closed her eyes five minutes ago and having to open them to Derek was the last thing she wanted to have happen. Seemed like those nightmares were coming true in rapid fashion.

**_-----_**

"What do you want Derek?" She kicks her heel against the side of her desk trying to quell the passive aggressive anger just in case he has a decent explanation.

He gazes from the chair opposite her and feels suddenly brave enough to blurt it all out. "I want you to come home. I want a second chance because I gave you one and I want a life with you. I want our family Addison. I want to barbeque in the backyard of the new house I just bought for us and I want to teach our son or daughter how to ride a bike. I want to be there Christmas morning to see the excitement-"

"Derek." She states authoritatively. She is in no mood for his long winded speeches but he doesn't catch the hint and continues on anyway.

"I want you to yell at me in the morning for not picking up cereal at the store. I want crazy Thanksgivings, quiet New Years' with our kid between us on the couch while we watch the ball drop… I want us. I miss you Addison, I love you. I know it took me far too long…but I get it now. I screwed up a lot and I am willing to prove to you that I am in this. I'm in this so much that it hurts to have you a state away. So…come home, work it out?" He finishes meekly and holds his breath waiting for her answer.

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get out of my office."

"Addison, I just poured my heart out here."

"I know, now go."

He stands, shifting his feet nervously; somewhat reminiscent of the first time he asked her out for coffee and dares to look into her eyes. They appear dead and tired. The life having been sucked out of them at some point. The pale blue flashes nothing resembling a feeling and he dares again, "I can't leave you without trying. I meant it when I said I loved you, I do. I really do and I can't leave. I'm not walking away this time Addison. I'll probably get a hotel room and I'll call you ok? Just think about it, promise me you'll think about it." He saunters from the room, tail between his legs and Addison watches as he grabs the elevator down.

Her minds swirls with a dizzying dance of the words she just heard. When he was down before she gave consideration to going back to him. She could have probably been happy if she put her mind to it. It would mean a lot of work and some potential heartbreak but it could be manageable. Now there's a problem, now there's Mark. She grabs the next chart of her desk and storms off to the exam room.

**_-----_**

She pauses as the fetus' heartbeat fills the sound of the room and watches as both the mother and father's eye well up. Mommy to be soon gives in and lets the tears stream down her cheek. "Sorry." She wipes at them using the back of her hand as her husband places a kiss to her palm.

"I've seen it all." She reaffirms. Crying is literally nothing comparatively speaking. This used to be one of her favorite parts of the job. Watching as good people got good things. While she is certainly met with the realization that the world is harsh and cruel enough to take a newborn away from its mother, she could always push that aside for these moments. Take the borrowed sorrow of another and shove it down under the happy tears, loud wails indicating healthy lungs, and the look on people's face when she presented their child to them. Even the sick ones, the ones who eventually got better all held special little snapshots in her head. Whenever she felt down on herself or just needed assurance that she didn't suck at her job she would conjure up a memory, take a deep breath, and present the facts at hand.

However now, she feels nothing. The tears glistening on the brunettes cheek kind of annoy her and all she wants to do is bolt from the room. After trying to think of better things so that she can finish the exam her world crumbles. She has nothing to recall, all the happy moments are cancelled out by her grief and she hastily excuses herself from the room and heads down the hall.

"Violet?" She calls out entering the office.

Her head shoots up leaving bouncing curls to fling around. "Add- Dr. Montgomery, I have a patient. I'll be with you as soon as I can." She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head to the door.

"Yeah, you know…" She turns to the older man on the couch with his hands clasped over his heart. "You could come back right? This is kind of emergent."

"Look, I only have ten minutes left here and then I'll be right in. Exam room 2?"

"No…I...uh...Damn it." She curses as the tears fall from the corner of her eyes and scuffs her shoe against the wood when she finds herself unbearable.

Violet excuses herself for a moment and approaches the taller woman to ask what is wrong. She is met by more tears and a whispered, "I'm not okay."

Turning back around she explains that she would happily give James a ten minute extension next session if she could handle this. He agrees and she leads Addison to the couch.

"What happened? Do you want me to get Mark, Naomi?"

"No! No." She shouts back, drying her eyes on the sleeve of her lab coat.

"Okay, well you want to talk about it?"

"I said I'm not okay! I'm not okay." She reclines against the couch rigidly and gives up on the tears for awhile.

"What are you- Oh, Naomi, hi." Her eyes trail up to her friend and watch as Addison shirks away to hide any emotion on her face.

"Addison, you have a patient waiting for you and one you haven't finished in the exam room. Dell said he went in to check and here you are. I need you to finish that and if you need help then-"

Violet shakes her head urging Naomi to take a closer look. "Naomi, I wouldn't. She's…uh. She's not okay."

**_-----_**

He's positioned her into bed with a glass of water on the nightstand next to her. A little angry that no one bothered to get him until a few hours after the whole incident started he toes from the room to call and yell at Violet.

"Mark?" She twists in the blankets until she can see him. Feeling more than ashamed by the whole situation she allowed them to reach Mark so she could be escorted home for the evening with the promise of calling in if she needed some extra time tomorrow. She can't really recall anything in the last two hours except repeating over and over that she was less than alright and sobbing until they threatened to sedate her again. In no uncertain terms she informed them that she would not be returning to the hospital any time soon and got herself under control enough to convey some of her darkest fears to someone she isn't really sure cares.

She needed the balance of professionalism. Needed the chance to speak to someone who wouldn't judge her and wouldn't try and hold her and fix her. She agreed to come back to Violet regularly so she could start working on the many issues that were merely lying dormant until the whole catastrophe hit. Right now though in the near darkness of her room she feels no better about anything and the things Derek said early are weighing heavy on her mind.

"Yeah? Do you need something? I can get you some crackers or applesauce; you seem to hold that down pretty well."

"No." She reaches her hand out for him and he comes back toward the bed lightly taking her hand in his and tangling their fingers. He still needs to pick up Elianna, get dinner underway, find a time to feed Kennedy, help with homework not that Ellie ever needs it and get a second to set the TV to record the Yankees game.

"What's up? You want to talk?"

"Not really." She grows quiet before finding the strength to ask, "Do you love me?"

His eyes fire confusion and he tries to set his lips in motion, damn well determined not to hesitate again. "Of course I love you. I've loved you for a very long time Addison."

"You never say it." It's not a question; it's a fact. Derek said it. Mark does not.

He feels that it is more of question and starts to speak again before she can stop him. He knows she is curious. "I don't say it because I don't want to pressure you. I love you but I don't want to say it all the time with no reciprocation. I have some feelings, not just sexual ones and you aren't there yet. You don't love me Addie. But I'm holding onto faith that you will."

She opens her mouth to directly rebut what he is saying but finds herself unable to form the words. She doesn't love him but she is almost certain she doesn't love Derek either.

**_-----_**

"But I don't like green beans!" Ellie defiantly sets her fork down and crosses her arms huffing in a more mature manner than Mark can possibly envision. He is presently seated across from her rocking Kennedy with his foot and trying to enjoy his steak in silence while watching the game from the kitchen.

"You have to eat something. You don't want that then you don't get anything."

"My daddy says that I don't have to eat what I don't like."

"Well, I'm not your daddy, I'm Uncle Mark." He peers around her head long enough to see Jeter slam one out of the park for once and it takes everything in him to not yell something to the effect of about damn time or get up and do a little victory dance as the game ties in the bottom of the eighth.

"Mommy always used to cut it. I can't eat it." She stabs at the slab of meat in front of her and then gives up when he seems completely uninterested. She gets up from her spot and pushes a chair over to the counter after grabbing the peanut butter out of the pantry.

He spins around a few minutes later to see her holding a spoon full of peanut butter and two pieces of torn bread. "What are you doing? You have dinner."

"I want this!" She shouts back stamping her feet against the chair.

"Fine, god! Yell at me, why don't you?" He takes a few seconds to try and keep the frustration at bay before taking the spoon from her hand.

"That's mine!" She says in another loud voice clearly showing that she doesn't care to be quiet.

"Well you can't very well make a peanut butter sandwich with a spoon. What are you thinking, look at your bread." He holds up the crumbling mess and then throws it in the trash before reaching for a butter knife. "Here take this." He instructs.

"I can't play with knifies."

"Knives. And sure you can. Well, don't play but you have to use it to make this. Plus your Aunt happens to be very talented with knives so I think you will be just fine if you share any of her genetic make-up."

"Genetic?"

"Never mind, just watch." He spreads the warm chunky peanut butter over the bread without causing one tear and she stares with intense wonderment. "You want jelly?"

She crinkles her nose before pouting, "I want honey." He rifles through the fridge finally finding good honey in the back. "Okay. Now you drizzle this over the top like that, put the other piece down, and viola! Sandwich. You want squares, triangles or a circle?" And then suddenly he's gawking at himself for even remembering that kids like their sandwiches in shapes. He grins and waits for her reply.

"Circle?"

"Yeah, Here you just cut off the crust and round out the edges."

"Wow." She scoots the chair back and joins him at the table again and they spend the rest of the evening in the peace provided by the ten minute intervals of silence that Kennedy is willing to give. He thinks better of waking Addison, even if she is better with the screaming one and finally after much work he gets them both to bed.

**_-----_**

After a dazzling round of catching up on Sports scores he finally clicks the TV off and begins to head upstairs when he hears knocking on the front door. He turns, and goes to see who would bother coming by so late.

"Derek?"

"Hey. Is…uh Addison awake?"

"No. What are you doing here?"

"None of your business. What are you doing in her house?"

"None of yours. Now that we have that established, goodnight."

"Mark! I just need you to pass along a message ok?"

"Sure."

"Tell her that I had to go back to Seattle sooner than I thought. Actually, I only have about an hour to get to the airport but I am still waiting for her answer."

"Her answer to what?" Growing irritated he leans against the door jam trying not to think about Derek as the reason why Addison lost it again today.

"Not for you to know. Please tell her."

"I will. Bye Derek."

"Bye." It takes everything in his power not to slam the door in his ex-best friend's face.

**_-----_**

Two hours later he finally has his mind settled enough about the whole thing to make it to bed. He checks Elianna's room to see her curled up around some stuffed animal and toes quietly in with a sleeping infant. He places her down wrapping her tightly and then hopping in behind Addison. He rolls facing away from her, happy that for once she doesn't try and dig her way into his grasp. She doesn't stir and just as his eyes begin to drift off her hears his pager vibrate against the night stand. Grabbing it, trying not to curse he silences the noise but it is too late.

"Mark?"

He shifts out of the bed and his feet make contact with the cold floor causing a sensation to run up his spine. "Yeah?"

"What was that?"

"My pager."

"You aren't on call." She turns over and faces him as he grabs his cell phone and dials. She waits until he is done and then asks again hoping for an answer.

"It was Naomi. She is on the way to the hospital and she needs me to come operate on one of her patients. Something about reconstruction I don't know why they need me specifically but I'll be back soon. Just sleep Addie." He kisses her temple and reaches for his shoes across the room.

Plastic surgeons are rarely needed immediately unless they work out of hospitals and Mark almost misses the rush of doing something other than a face lift or a tummy tuck. Reconstruction was always a secret guilty pleasure that he never told a soul about. Well, there was that one time with Derek but they were both drunk and young so he puts stock into him not remembering. He tugs on his pants and kisses her one more time before heading for the door. He watches as her chest rises and falls before an, "I love you." Makes its way out of his mouth.

She heard him when he said it this time. She spends the rest of the night fraught with horrible flashbacks and hallucinations and when she awakens alone at four in the morning in a cold sweat and to the sounds of cries she gives up on going in for the day.

**_-----_**

"If you aren't going, then why do I have to?" Ellie whines from her place in the backseat.

Addison mindlessly rubs her temple at a stoplight and tries to remain patient when she feels anything but. The 'I hate cars syndrome' has not vacated Kennedy's memory so their words are spoken in a such a tone that her head can hardly handle the volume. Falling back into the house, she collapses on the couch holding the infant tight to her chest. She reaches for her cell phone out of her purse that is exactly three inches too far away to get by hand before she hears the doorbell.

Sam stands rubbing his hand across the back of his neck thinking of the best way to say this. This specific scenario is always why he hated his residency and when she pulls back the door exhausted and surprised the guilt works its way into his stomach. He watches her briefly as she asks what he is doing there and explains how she was just about to call in to take the day off.

There is never a good time to tell someone bad news. The people who tell you to wait it out for a better time are idiots, he decides in that moment. Because as soon as you tell them the far better times they were having before no longer matter. They instantly all become horrible moments in time. It's the worst kind of power to possess in his opinion; this sort of knowledge. He understands as he shifts his keys in his other hand that this will probably make her day worse but from the wayward ponytail down to the sweatshirt and jeans he doesn't really know what has been going on anyway.

The world changes when it wants. It stops, picks up pace, taunts, and torments. People making bad choices in one room could be affecting the poor wayward soul on the other side of the country. No matter when you tell said soul about the news that you ruined their life, it will be a bad day for them. There's no changing that. He knows it to be true so he hesitantly takes the baby from her arms and prepares for the worst.

"Addison, there's been an accident."

**_-----_**

* * *


	21. All the right shades on the wrong page

A/N: This took a little longer than expected but it is also significantly longer than I had originally intended so therein lies the hold up. I used times in this chapter and they aren't necessarily important but they were fun so I hope you can follow around as I got kind of jumpy. Also Addison gets called out, for real...but she needs to pull her head out of her ass a bit so at any rate keep faith and enjoy. Here we go-**_  
_**

**_-----_**  
**_Picture perfect mutilation_**  
**_Bright to black_**  
**_With no hesitation_**  
**_All the right shades_**  
**_On the wrong page_**  
**_Make up this colorful mind_**  
**_This colorful mind of mine_**  
_-Broken Iris, "Colorful Mind"_  
**_-----_**

_10:14 a.m._

The world changes when it wants. Her life is merely a testament to this fact. Whatever control she thought she may have possessed has long since been relinquished to the powers that be in the universe. Too many hard nights, too many long mornings, too many senseless deaths, too many working hours lost and too many heartaches all go to prove this point. There was a time, always a time in the earlier years, where she thought that the wonderful existed. That it could be possible to get what you wanted from life. To achieve dreams, grasp onto hope and hang on for dear life, and to actually be paid back for it all.

There's no prize behind this door; no treasure in this chest. Just black. The black that mocks her, the clouds that hang overhead as a reminder of all the despicable things she's done. They get to pay her back, make no mistake about that; karma knows it's role in her life but only the bad version. Her good karma she would admit is probably passed to her patients. The hundreds that continue to flourish because of her skills. This is her gift to the world; the pleasant things that happen to her are medically related. It could be that her sole purpose on the earth is to save others, she isn't really sure anymore. Her personal life is plagued by tragedy, mistakes, betrayals, and sorrow but professionally she is a clean slate. A calm whirlwind that begs to be challenged when holding a scalpel, a heart that demands adrenaline and a soul that lives to hand people screaming healthy infants. At least she used to be.  
_  
"Addison, there's been an accident."_

The world changes whenever it fucking pleases.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

_9:08 a.m._

"What happened!" A familiar voice barks as the interns crowd around the ambulance.

"Car accident on the 5. Twenty minutes to respond, took fire thirty to get him out." They begin to wheel his bloodied body out the doors and rush him through hospital shouting out vitals and the drugs administered in the field.

Fingers snap above his eyes as he dares to drift off to sleep. "Stay with me. Come on."

It's more of an out of body experience for him. There's no pain, his mind can't register as a doctor to understand the implications of his numb limbs as they shift him off the stretcher and head for an elevator. There are faces everywhere. Some he has seen before, some he will never recognize again.

He hears a ding as his world grows fuzzy. Reaching his hand to touch the one holding the railing he whispers, "Addison, get Addi-."

**_-----_**

_9:36 a.m._

"Where are tweedle dee and tweedle dumb?" Cooper asks sauntering into the conference room late. His eyes only count the original members of the group and no screaming children for a change.

"Dunno." Sam responds and drops his head back to files in front of him.

"Have you talked to Addison, Naomi?"

"Not yet. I'm assuming she's taking today off."

"Yesterday was interesting." Dell pipes up entering the room with Naomi's coffee. He places it in front of her, waits for his thanks, and bounds out of the room with a smile.

"That needs to stop."

"What? He brings me my coffee. He brings you all things. It's nothing."

"Uh-huh."

Sam clears his throat. "So cases?"

"I'm clear after 3 if anyone needs me." Pete offers as Sam's phone begins to ring. He excuses himself from the room and never returns.

**_-----_**  
_  
10:18 a.m._

"Where did Sam go?" Pete asks shifting his files under his arm and standing.

"Oh now you've done it Naomi." Violet mocks and heads toward the door.

"I didn't do anything. Sam's a big boy and there is nothing going on."

"Whatever you say Mrs. Robinson." Cooper teases.

"Coming from the man who dates women named 'Smokinhot784' and 'OnFire4U'?"

"My internet conquests have names."

"Yeah Trixy, Roxie, Candy, and John."

"John?" Violet asks more than intrigued. She playfully punches Cooper in the shoulder and motions Pete for a high five while Naomi shakes her head biting her tongue.

"Ok, first of all those aren't any of their names…well there was a Roxie but that isn't the point and I didn't ever date John. He and I and-" He grumbles drifting off completely defeated.

"I'm going to go call Addison and see if she is going to make an appearance. Somebody wanna find out where Sam headed off to so I don't have to yell?"

"Got it." Cooper offers heading the group out of the room.

**_-----_**

_10:16 a.m._

Her mind pauses before instincts can kick in to ask what happened. Sam stands in front of her with Kennedy, she doesn't recall when that happened but his somber face and worried eyes are more than enough for her to want to pass out at the thought of him being hurt.

"Car crash. They don't know much else. He was being wheeled into CT when they called me."

She stares back blankly.

He flips his wrist to check his watch again. "That was about an hour ago. They said he wanted you."

"Right." Her mind thinks of grabbing her purse and rushing towards the car ten yards from her but her feet refuse to budge an inch.

"If it was serious, Addison, they would have told me. I'm sure he'll be fine." It's a desperate attempt to not see her self destruct over the news. He tries to be the comforting, supportive friend but it never does seem to get him anywhere. He'd offer her a good stiff drink, if he could, just like the old days.

"You're wrong." She whispers biting down hard on her lower lip.

"What?"

"You're wrong. They never would've told you if it was serious or not over the phone. Hospitals don't work like that. You know better."

"Yeah, I do. Call it a feeling then. I have a hunch that he is just fine. I'll drive you if you want to the- we…could go together?"

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not going to spend all day in a waiting room with a screaming infant and a bouncing five year old Sam. Find out more and then come tell me. Tell them to tell him I'll be there before he wakes up."

"You don't want to come?"

"Not right now." She grabs the infant back from his warm arms and shuts the door in his face before pacing into the room to dispose of said child and falling to her knees.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**  
_  
10:49 a.m._

"Sam where the hell did you go? You can't just take off in the middle of the morning meeting. We have schedule, you have patients!" His ex-wife barks at him. He ignores her, turns around and heads to his office to make some calls without saying a word.

"Whoa, Sam looks like he saw a ghost." Pete mutters swooping in beside her.

"That man- That man is absolutely infuriating. What? I'm supposed to just sit here and think everything is all fine when he disappears for hours at a time?"

Pete holds his hands up surrendering. "I didn't say anything."

"Men." She grumbles and steps back inadvertently knocking into Violet. "Sorry."

"It's ok. What's up with Sam? He looks like he saw a ghost or…his mother."

"His mother is dead."

"Well see then it works." Violet shrugs and turns away trying to concern herself with her own problems for a change.

**_-----_**

_10:32 a.m._

In preparation for the hell that was about to ensue Addison managed to engage her brain long enough to drive to Ellie's school and pluck her from the classroom. More than eager to leave behind her classmates Ellie bounds out of her Aunt's grasp and heads for the car.

"Why are we taking today off?"

"Just are." Addison answers finally catching up.

"Are we sick?"

"Do you feel sick?" She ignores the fact that she does. Sick in the pit of her stomach and it isn't the ever present morning sickness.

She makes a disgusted face and then quickly answers, "No. I don't want to go to the dentist! I hate him."

"What are you talking about?" She straps in Kennedy and helps Elianna in before situating herself behind the wheel once again. She thinks better of driving to a place where she can see what exactly the car wreck has done to her life and turns in the opposite direction, dead set on finishing this morning's errands.

"When I get off school I always halfta go to the dentist. He makes me cry and I don't wanna go." She kicks her legs hard against the back of Addison's seat and earns herself a stern warning glance.

"We aren't going to the dentist."

"Can we have ice creams then?"

"What? No. We are going to run errands and then maybe visit somebody, ok? I need you to be good and I need you to be quiet today. Understand?" She checks the rearview mirror for a response when she gets nothing verbal and sees the red curls nodding yes as she comes to a four way stop.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**  
_  
10:30 a.m._

"She's late." The nurse remarks checking the clock on the wall one more time.

"She'll be here." He answers. She just told him about this appointment yesterday so she may have forgotten but he thinks better of it; she doesn't usually forget the important things. He grins thinking about being able to see the little baby growing inside of her today for the first time.

"She has fifteen more minutes and then I am telling Dr. Everly to give up and move on." She retorts haughtily flipping her chart closed.

He keeps an aside about people in L.A. having their heads too far up their asses and instead stretches back against the hard plastic waiting room chair. He believes for such a ritzy little doctor's suite the very least thing they could do would be to provide comfortable chairs for expectant mothers. Watching the hands tick on the clock as the seconds are lost without her presence.

**_-----_**  
_  
10:44 a.m._

"We're going to have to operate if he stands any chance at being able to use his arm again."

"CT was almost clean. A slight bleed in the temporal lobe but it should clear itself. No edema. Clearly his tibia and fibula are crushed on the left side and there is a lot of bruising from the seat belt and airbags but other than that he looks alright. He's lucky."

"That's good. What took them so long to get him out?"

"13 car pile up. They do what they can." She shrugs knowing full well that this isn't really the time to start a fight with anyone.

"Well them taking their sweet time could have cost this man his career. Page Dr. Rein and we'll find out and get me an O.R." He reaches for his phone that is happily buzzing away on his hip answering to find a voice demanding to know about the patient in front of him. He replies with all that he can before taking a long deep breath and heading down the hallway.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

_10:39 a.m._

Addison rushes from the car with many bags and two children that are driving her insane, not that she really needs a lot of help these days. She drops the bags and her purse at his feet when she enters the waiting room and goes to notify them of her arrival.

"Addison?" He questions as he struggles to wrap the blanket around the infant again.

"Yeah?"

"You alright?" He watches as her demeanor instantly changes. She stands straighter, runs a hand through her hair and gives a grin to cover the emotion that was on her face before. "Yup, let's do this."

"Ok." He stands dragging along everything and everyone back into the exam room.

**_-----_**

_10:47 a.m._

"So I'll just run through the exams really quickly, ask you some questions…" He drifts off reading his chart. "…Addison and then you and your husband can hear the heart beat and we'll get some pictures taken. Sound good?"

"He's not my husband." She quickly fills in.

"Oh, ok." He looks around nervously and then gives up. "Sir you might want to take the kids out for a while. I'll come get you as soon as I am ready, alright?"

"Sure." He grumbles grabbing Ellie's hand and leading her to the door.

"So…Addison? You drink or smoke?"

"No."

"How's the morning sickness?"

"Persistent and not limited to the morning hours."

"Well, we will see if I can help you out with that a little later on if it continues, alright?"

"Sure."

"Good. Go ahead and lift your feet into the stirrups, there we go thanks." He begins his exam as her eyes flutter around the room. She reads through the posters she knows by heart and still somehow feels completely unprepared for this.

Attempting small talk Dr. Everly notices her distress, it isn't really as uncommon as one would think, and tries to soften the mood a little. "So what line of work are you in Addison?"

She swallows hard unsure of whether or not she should answer him. "I'm a doctor."

"Hmm?"

She clears her throat and answers this time with more confidence, "I'm a doctor. Well a surgeon. Neonatal." She speaks in rushed fragments trying to ease her mind somewhere other than seeing his body in a heap of glass and blood all the while knowing that she should feel semi-responsible.

He smiles sincerely and then chuckles a little causing his light brown hair to bounce. "Well, I guess we can stop playing the twenty questions game then. You have anything you need to tell me or are curious about?"

"No." She says softly willing him to hurry up his cold hands and be done already.

**_-----_**

_10:57 a.m._

"Sam, open up!" She bangs her fists against the glass on his door and he pulls it back glaring and holding a hand over the receiver of the phone. "You mind woman?"

"Sorry." She whispers and takes a seat waiting for him to be done. He continues talking about what she thinks is a patient and drops his head to his desk after hanging up.

"What do you need Naomi?"

"Where'd you take off to?"

"We are divorced. I don't need to tell you my every movement." He snaps and then immediately regrets it.

"Yeah I know Sam. You tell me every chance you get. I worry sometimes though." She stands. "Sorry for caring." She turns to stomp out of the room when he lifts his head and sighs heavily.

"Derek was in a car accident this morning."

"Oh god."

Shaking his head he exhales deeply and watches the old love of his life's face crumble a little at the implications. "Yeah."

"He's fine right? I mean what happened, how did it happen? And Addison, oh god Addison. Is she there, does she know?"

"Slow down. He was hit this morning on the freeway on his way to work from the airport. Something about 13 cars."

"13!"

"Listen Naomi, he's going to be alright I think. I can't get anything out of them other than he is going in for surgery now and will be out in like 8 hours or something equally ridiculous."

"We should go."

"Naomi, we can't just go. We have a practice. We have Maya." He shifts back into his chair watching her determination grow.

"No Addison needs us. She needs her people. We can't send her back to the wolves alone, pregnant and alone, pregnant, alone and with two children! We can't do that Sam. We could take a vacation. Maya is doing really great in school, she could come too. Or she could stay with Violet."

"Violet hates children."

"Maya is a teenager. They get along. It's better than Cooper or Pete. Did Addison leave already; maybe we can all get on the same flight."

"Naomi!" He stands up trying to grab her attention.

She pulls out of the haze briefly before returning to planning things in her head. "Yeah?"

"Addison knows but she said she didn't want to wait around in a hospital all day until she knew something so she's still here. I offered already to go with her but she declined and shut the door in my face."

"Why didn't you tell me! I was worried Sam. You should have told me. How did you find out anyway?" She spouts off in particular order or logical direction.

"I was in Addison's office looking for a file and picked up her phone because it was driving me crazy. And I told you." He's seen this one too many times before. She deflects pain into anger and anger into a survival plan. Pacing from his desk he offers her a warm hug and gently strokes her hair so she doesn't grow violent. "Let's not worry until we have something to worry about."

**_-----_**

_11:15 a.m._

"Everything looks really good so far. And I believe, if my intuition is right, I have a surprise for you but let's go grab Daddy and the kids first."

She glares at him. She hates surprises, literally thinks that the whole idea is the scum of the earth. Besides, as far as she is concerned there is no way that this will be a surprise that makes her happy. Setting her eyes on the door handle and ignoring the dig about the father of her children she concentrates hard on breathing normally and looking sane so as to not alarm anyone, least of all Mark who has been watching her like a hawk since she arrived.

He comes back in with the concerned eyes of before, pulls Ellie into his lap and grabs Addison's hand as the doctor gears up for the next round. He gives her a quick smile and fights not to feel her racing pulse against his thumb when he lightly rubs her wrist.

"Alright, let's see if I can find it here." He places the probe on her right side and quickly finds the whooshing sound of a heartbeat. He then switches ever faster to the other side where the same noise is present. "Hear that?"

"What?" Mark asks intrigued.

"That's just my heartbeat right? Mine and his or hers. Don't toy with me here Everly." She warns squinting her eyes closed as he confirms her worst fears.

"Congratulations kids, looks like you are having twins."

"Twins?" Ellie repeats as she crinkles her nose.

Mark chokes on his own tongue and Addison stares blankly into the space in front of her. The jumpy child gets her answer from the doctor, "Twins means that there are two babies in your mommy's tummy."

Ellie grows more confused looking at her sister and then back up to her Aunt's exposed stomach. "That's not mommy!" She shouts at him. "That's Addie!"

"Elianna." Mark warns praying that Addison will give some sort of sign that she is living any second now. He mumbles under his breath, "Way to go Derek.", before he can stop himself.

She gulps, trying to not throw up, pass out, or cry all at the same time. "You're sure?"

"Well yeah. I mean yes. I am positive and from what I can tell they are mono/di."

She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the exam table. "Great."

Mark racks his head for the things he learned about obstetrics in college. He repeats mono/di over and over trying to come up with something when she looks over at him and whispers, "Same placenta different sacs."

"I knew that." He scoffs looking back at her with a grin.

"So let's have a look shall we?" Everly breaks through trying to knock around the stagnant air of the room.

Addison focuses her eyes on Mark's hand on her arm. She should've known. She would've known is she wasn't so damn busy lately. She looks away as the image pops up on the screen. She can't look at the child…wait no children inside of her. Today just keeps getting better and better.

**_-----_**

_11:49 a.m._

"She's not picking up. She should be picking up." Naomi throws her cell phone at Violet's couch as the rest of the members of the practice watch her with trepidation.

Sam dares to touch her shoulder and she spins around offering him a piece of her mind before falling into his arms for the second time that day. Pete grabs a seat next to Violet and scrunches his face into a contorted version of a prune that spawns her laughing hysterically.

"Violet! This isn't funny. You are so inappropriate sometimes. I can't believe you. Derek is our friend, grow up and show some concern."

She quells the giggling and slaps Pete before responding, "I hope the crash didn't mess up his hair." This immediately grabs everyone's attention. "What? He had great hair."

Naomi looks at her beyond Sam's shoulder before laughing herself. "Damn it Violet."

"Ladies, I am sure the hair is the least of their concerns." He pauses. "Could you imagine Derek with a shaved head?"

"That could be hot." Violet offers even though she is more partial to his dark wavy locks.

"Please tell me you aren't fawning over Addison's ex-husband again." Cooper plainly states grabbing a seat when he walks in after his last patient who had a marble stuck up his nose.

"Better than Allan."

"Better than Allan." He affirms. "So we know anything yet?"

"No, they are supposed to be in surgery for a few hours. Naomi and I have something we need to talk to you guys about."

"You are reconciling! Finally, man I can not tell you what the divorce has done to this practice. You two idiots caused- oh." Cooper stops mid sentence catching their stern glances. "You aren't getting back together."

"Nice going Coop."

"No, we aren't." Naomi starts.

"We are thinking of going up to Seattle for a little while to make sure Derek is okay though."

"Doesn't he have family or something?" Pete asks flipping through a notebook in front of him. Violet slaps his hand away immediately knocking it to the ground.

"Patients notes in there snoopy."

"Sorry. So doesn't he have family?"

"Uh…yeah. But he doesn't talk to them anymore from what I understand." Naomi replies stepping back from Sam after it is clear that they have given the wrong impression.

"Why not?" Pete presses.

"Not important. Anyway Addison was his family and now he needs someone. So we are thinking of going up if she wants us to and we'll go from there. It could be a few days to a few weeks."

"Wohoho…you can't be gone for weeks. Who is going to run this place?" Cooper asks jumping in again as he slings his shoes onto the coffee table in front of him.

"You guys will be fine. This isn't a negotiation. We just wanted you to know." Sam states before heading to the door to make a few more calls and to try and track down Addison for Naomi.

**_-----_**

_11:45 a.m._

"Twins." Mark repeats to no one in particular as they make their way make to the parking lot. He has Kennedy hanging from one arm and Addison with a death grip on the other as Ellie holds onto the other side of Kennedy's car seat putting them into a nice little line of an absolutely wretched people.

She doesn't bother replying because she can't find the words that would be important. What feels suiting would be a few long lines of expletives followed by punching something and then sobbing until her throat ached. What is appropriate is something entirely different so she sticks to the middle ground and says nothing.

"Addison?"

She looks at him when they reach the car almost a two full minutes later. "Hmm?"

"It's going to be ok. Two is good. The more the merrier." In reality he sees zero benefits to having twins and about nine hundred potential problems but she needs support not honestly. As always.

"It doesn't work like that. It's…it's twice the everything Mark. I can't do this. I can't." And the more she says it; the more she acts out- the more he begins to believe her.

"Get in the car." He replies safely strapping both girls into his vehicle.

"I'll walk."

"Like hell you will. Get in the car."

"Why?"

"Because you are on the verge of some flip out, call it a feeling I have, but we aren't doing this in the parking lot so get in the car. I'll let you scream and punch things and beat me if you want me but we aren't doing it here."

"Fine." She throws her purse in before climbing into the passenger's side and falling silent again. As he pulls out from the parking lot she whispers, "Derek was in a car accident this morning." He taps on the brakes stopping them short of the exit and searches her eyes for the truth.

**_-----_**  
_  
12:01 p.m._

"Where have you been?" Naomi shouts as Mark emerges from the elevator with two children and no Addison. Finding herself placed in an odd spot has caused all kinds of emotions that she would generally keep bottled up. Yelling to almost crying, touching Sam to almost wishing they were getting back together. The ideas plague her as she jitters around in a dizzying dance looking for the answers.

"Hello, doctor's appointment. Does anyone keep track of things around here besides Dell?"

"Oh." Naomi sighs as she remembers the note on her calendar.

"Yeah."

"Wait, where are you going?" She asks as he brushes past her.

"Hi Auntie Nae!" Ellie screams latching onto her leg.

"Hey kiddo how's your day?" She bends over brushing some of the curls out of the child's face and is met with eye rolling.

"Addie came and got me from school, then we went to the one place and learned bout twins, and then I had to come with Mark." She shrugs and then offers a picture that she drew earlier to the older woman.

"Mark? Twins? Oh, please tell me you were reading her a book in the reception area."

"Not exactly."

"Great."

"Something like that." He reaches out and grabs Ellie's sweater by the tag as she tries to go parading past into Violet's office.

"Where's Addison?" She asks resuming her position and tucking the picture under her arm without looking at it.

"She said she needed to do something and I sure as hell wasn't invited to tag along and be annoying so I should just come back to work and handle the kids. Her words, not mine."

"Damn, so she is taking it well then?"

"Clearly. I need to go make some calls…try and track down M.I.A. Addison, anyone free to baby-sit?"

"'I'll take them for awhile." She pauses and then clears her throat when he begins to walk away. "Hey, umm…Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Did she mention anything about Derek?"

"A little. Did…I mean what do we actually know?" He feels more guilty than the rest, having sent Derek away that night. From what he knows, it isn't his fault and the accident happened in Seattle but it doesn't make him feel any better about his potential last words to a once great friend. Once upon a time the only person who knew him in this world.

**_-----_**

_12:27 p.m._

She purposely parks as far away as possible and then takes slow deliberate steps toward the place that ruined her life. Figuring that visiting helped Ellie and maybe it can do something for her as well she stares directly at the ground when the headstones begin to pass her by. Her heels smash in wet yellow-green leaves that haven't been cleared from the path yet and the cool breeze catches her bare legs making her wish that she was still at home under a blanket living in blissful ignorance.

There's no protection at this point; no shield from her reality and while thinking about the excitement of twins would have been welcomed years back it is now overshadowed by everything else. She keeps seeing flashes of a car accident and her brain outright refuses to stop placing Derek's broken body inside the image. It's probably wrong to think of him still; that is more of Meredith's job these days. To be the one to worry, to be the one who feels as though their world may be stopping when he goes under the knife. She chalks it up to a decade of marriage and shoves the blood covered fragments of a shattered windshield lying helpless on the freeway out of mind and sets her eyes on the destination.

She should be worried about how Kennedy still won't stop crying; how Ellie still gets that look in her eyes and how sometimes when no one is looking she draws overly graphic pictures for a five year old. She should be concerned about her relationship with Mark; about her patients that she has scheduled for the week and about how to figure out where in the world Pierce has taken off to but she can't. She is locked into the hell that is Addison world and she can't find the key to get out. Glancing downward at the cold recently filled in grave she tries to form words.

She wants to yell and scream at her dead sister for ruining her already horrible life and for giving her two kids who she can barely handle on a good day. She wants so badly to apologize for letting some second rate surgical team cut her open and leave her to bleed out in the cruel sterile room. She wants to cry, to sob uncontrollably until the hurt goes away and the laughter that she forces from her chest can feel real again. She wants to kick the headstone out of frustration, trample the dying roses, curse her sister's name and then leave her children on the front porch of their own home but she can't. The enormity of all of the situations leaves her silent. The weight of all the issues too much to bare leaves her devoid and trapped behind cold eyes and trembling fingers.

She thought about this moment, the day when it would be that she returned alone to the shallow grave covering the disintegrating body held by a shiny black casket. The simple words she wanted to say, the feeling of relief washing over her, the smile that would grace her lips as she left offering the quickest of goodbyes to her baby sister but none of it is here today. Disheartened and confused she stands teetering before reaching over to grab the decaying roses with the intent of disposing them before she feels a hand on her shoulder.

He's been there for a greater portion of fifteen minutes, leaning up against the tree that she refused to leave on the day they put her sister in the ground. Gazing as she rocked back and forth and clung to the material covering her arms. Watching wide-eyed waiting, just waiting, for her to break. She refuses; he knows that she adamantly refuses to break down in public when it can be avoided. The cemetery is almost empty but still public enough so he chances it and walks up behind her giving her shoulder a light squeeze.

She swirls around in a half-frightened and half-angered mode. "What are you doing here?"

"I-I…uh, I wanted to check on you. Make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine Mark."

"Yeah, I know. I just had to see for myself."

"Good. You've seen and you can leave."

Looping his arm around her waist he falls quiet when she rests her head against his shoulder, both sets of eyes trained to the etched out lettering before them. Both sets of lungs filling slowly and exhaling even slower, both pairs of hands finding their way to one another in the vague hope that the false warmth can heal their souls.

**_-----_**

_12:23 p.m._

"Violet, can I borrow you?" Naomi asks peering around Dell who is blocking her view.

"I'm not watching those kids Naomi, for the hundredth time I have patients all afternoon and I can't play nanny right now. Just sit them down in front of the TV."

"Did I ask you to watch them, no. I said can I borrow you. I need to speak with you, Alright?"

"Yeah. Sorry." She shakes her hands out and then explains, "This whole day is so weird. Sorry I snapped…I just-"

"I know."

"Okay, so what do you have?" She takes a deep breath and careens her neck with expectation.

"This." She places the piece of paper down on the counter and slides it slowly her way.

"That's umm…well that's a very nice picture."

"It's grotesque." She trains her eyes toward Violet as she ponders what could have brought this on other than the obvious.

"Ellie?"

"Yup."

"Hmm…maybe. Well, I could try to talk to her again. I think Addison mentioned something about taking her to someone else the last few weeks but-"

"She was taking her to someone else when she wasn't talking but she stopped as soon as the words started to flow. God, five year olds shouldn't need therapy. I mean their world…it just shouldn't include anything psychological until at least the teenage years."

"I can't, well I shouldn't talk to her without someone's consent and I am not crossing that woman on this one. She is kind of scary when she gets going." She leans up against the counter staring at the picture again. Her eyes trying to sort through the red crayon outlines and black borders.

"Is it so much to ask that this kid just go normal again and stop causing problems? It's selfish but it would be so much easier if someone could just act normal around here."

Violet shrugs before standing upright and ogling one of the patients in the room. "Death does that. Normal changes when people change. So don't be expecting anyone to ever go back to how things were…it's just too traumatic to ask for that. It gets better though. It has already gotten better."

"It doesn't feel like it some days."

"Some days are good some days are bad, and some days are really bad. So what if the bad outweighs the good, eventually they catch up to each other."

"You really believe all this crap you spout off at people Vi?"

"I have to. If I didn't, my job would be useless thereby making me useless and I can't have that." She gives her boss a quick nod before snatching the drawing off the counter and heading back to her office.

**_-----_**

_1:56 p.m._

"We have a bleeder, Yang get on that." Webber instructs. They tried to tell him there was no way he was going to be allowed in. Miranda offered to fight him on it but he made plain as day that if anyone was operating than he was going to be watching.

"Got it sir." There is no way she is letting anything slip up in this surgery, not with the way Meredith was eyeing her down when they wheeled Derek in. Comforting and consoling are not her trademarked fortes so she is doing what she can which is operating. This she can do.

"Rein, what are you seeing up there?" He demands. Everyone is walking on thin ice trying to answer his questions appropriately. He asks every fifteen minutes or so and the answer is always the same. No news yet. Half tempted to chuck him a scalpel and tell him to get to work Rein replies, "Nothing good, and nothing bad."

"Torres." He barks.

"Sir, with all do respect if you keep asking me and breaking my concentration then I am never going to finish. You know as well as I do that I still have hours of surgery left in here so if you want to grab some pins and watch be my guest, otherwise I am going to have to call Bailey on you…sir." She finishes and reaches for the drill again. The leg issue is proving to be far more difficult than original; testing her knowledge and ability. Neither one of those conditions permits much time for her to stand around and gab with the chief.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

_12:45 p.m._

Violet sits cross-legged praying to god that no one will walk in here while she is attempting this. Breaking boundaries and ethics is not exactly how she gets her kicks out of life but children call for special measures. She lays a fresh piece of white printer paper in front of the giggling five year old and waits for the inevitable. She squints her eyes closed and watches while the girl immediately goes for the red crayon. She purposely put one red and many shades similar to it, to see if just perhaps she wanted pink but it wasn't available at the time.

It isn't about the color though. It wouldn't matter what hue of red was being used in this instance. It's about what happens when the short fingers pick up the freshly sharpened Crayola; what happens when her creativity unleashes itself. Talented for such a young age; although Violet remembers some argument about art being a trained skill and having nothing to do with natural ability, she watches intently as shapes take form.

"So Ellie, what are you drawing?"

She shrugs and continues on with out much verbiage to guide the conversation.

"Did you see this in a movie one time?" Violet dares.

"No."

"No? Not even over at a friend's house when you weren't supposed to be watching. It's alright you can tell me. Nothing you say in here will ever get you in trouble."

"Ok." She returns to the paper and sticks her tongue out, thinking that it will aide with the concentration.

"So you want to tell me anything? Anything at all, you could tell me story or ask me a question or whatever you want. It is fun with…" She grimaces and almost bites her own tongue as the words fall out of her mouth, "…Aunt Violet time."

She pauses looking up and considering the words Aunt again for the second time that day. She tilts her head from side to side and scoots back against the couch folding her hands in her lap, looking much older than she rightfully should. "Addie is sad."

"Yeah. Are you sad?"

"Sometimes. Addie cries a bunch. More than Kendy." She slides back down and reaches for her crayon deciding that talk time is over.

"It's ok to be sad. You can be sad too, you know that right?"

It goes unanswered as the red tint begins to occupy the majority of the page. Violet rubs her eyes and tries not to think about how many hours she is going to end up billing because of the child in front of her.

**_-----_**

_12:43 p.m._

"Addison just come inside and help me grab the girls."

"I don't want to go in there."

He reaches across and undoes her seatbelt and proceeds to grab her purse. Emasculating aside he rounds the car and opens her door before reaching for her hand. The ride was spent in silence and he wants to scream. "Addison please. Naomi is worried and we will just dash in and get everything and then…go home or something."

She releases herself from the vehicle without a word and then they are in the elevator climbing slowly.

"Addie, you have to give me something to work with here. Stop acting like a petulant four year old and use your words."

"What do you want Mark? What do you want me to say to you?"

He takes a deep breathe and then gives in because it needs to be said. The words aren't coming from anyone else and he is sick and tired of toeing the line where she is concerned. It isn't his style to hold back. Brutal bluntness applies. "I want you to talk. You need to talk about your sister; you need to talk about the girls, about the twins. Just talk damn it. Have a flip out moment and dye your hair or cut it but stop holding back."

"I don't want to talk about my sister and I am doing my best with the girls so don't even waste your breath on that topic."

"Twins." He reminds her again when there is no explanation given. Perhaps it is a bit rude to push her so hard when things are going wrong but he has exhausted all other methods and this is what he has got left.

"I can't. Happy?"

"No." He gripes when the doors open and they begin to be immersed by the work world. He stalks off to his office to check his calendar and clear patients for the afternoon.

**_-----_**

_1:09 p.m._

"Hey there." Naomi says as she twists Addison's arm and drags her into the closest room available. It happens to be an empty exam room but that really isn't the issue at hand here. "So, I heard the big news."

"Great, huh?"

"Well yeah. I mean we didn't think you could have any and now you get twins Addison. Good things do happen in life." She throws on the fake doctor smile for good measure.

"Yeah, sure." She heads toward the door and is stopped again by an arm. The constant touching is beginning to drive her crazy and she pulls back instantly defensive. "What Nae?"

"Derek."

"What about him?"

"Are you going?"

"I said I would and I will. Just not yet. Have you seen Sam? He was supposed-"

"They wouldn't give him anything Add, you know that."

"Yeah."

"But hey." She reaches out to stroke her arm and Addison reels into the wall pulling on her sleeves. "Whoa there."

She holds up her arms instinctively. "Don't touch. Just no more touching."

"Ok. No touching." Naomi repeats a little confused. "Anyway Sam and I were thinking of coming up with you. Help with the girls, I mean I know you have Mark but we can be there. Besides Derek is our friend and we want to be there."

She pauses against the wall pulling her hands into her sleeves and toying with the seam line. "You don't need to do that." Her voice speaks with the strength that her posture lacks.

"We want to."

"It's alright Nae. I'm a big kid. I can handle this…I just need some time off. I was going to call in this morning and I just…I need time now."

She takes a step forward to give a hug for the final admission but stops when Addison pushes herself into the wall harder and her eyes open widely. "What's your deal?"

"Nothing." She slinks back to her full height and forces her hands out of their resting place. "I'm going to go now."

"Wait, when are you going? We could get the same flights."

"Really Naomi you don't have to and I don't have anything booked." She walks to the door sucking the life out of her best friend as she goes. She has a draining sort of effect on everyone but she doesn't notice in the slightest.

**_-----_**

_1:36 p.m._

"What do you want from me Addison? You want me to go with you? You want me to stay here and watch the kids, what!" He yells back at her. The screaming match has only managed to escalate in the comfort of his new sparsely decorated office.

"I don't know."

"You have to tell me. I can't sit around and guess all fucking day!"

"I said I don't know! Stop yelling at me." She slides into his chair and spins away facing the window.

"Addison, do you even know what it is like to be around you right now?" She turns back slowly to him as he drops his voice. "You're hot one minute, cold the next. You yell, you cry, you pick fights, you're silent. It all depends on how you are feeling. Do you know what it is like to live with that?"

"Umm…yeah Mark. It is my personality we are dealing with here."

"You don't care. You don't care about anyone but yourself."

"I'm raising two children that aren't mine, what the hell do you call that?"

"An obligation to your dead sister is what I call that. It's not like you wouldn't have pawned them off already if you could find Pierce. I mean, shit, half this office is practically raising those kids…not you."

"I didn't come in here to be criticized but thanks Mark for always being so helpful in these situations."

"I'm helpful! I am helpful. I am bending over backwards to make you happy, to take care of the kids, I cleaned the fucking house last week Addie! This isn't me, you know that. "  
"You tell me I need to be all in, that I need to be sure but you aren't even it yourself. You won't let me help you out unless it is dinner or holding your hair back when you throw up. You just keep it all bottled in until you explode and I can't watch that anymore."

"Then leave, you know where the door is." She whispers back and he thinks he may have gone too far but it is too late now to halt the production.

"Addison, look at me." He reaches out for her chin but she twists away from him. "You and me, Add we are the same. Keep it in, keep it bottled up tight until we get self destructive. It's our thing. I noticed it about you on day one. Derek never got it. Derek took you for granted. Derek never cared. He didn't feel that way about you because he didn't know you. But you did that, that's on you for not sharing. Not all men notice things."

"The divorce-"

"Was not your fault, not anyone's and yet at the same time everyone's. What I'm saying is…you don't let me be your….your closer in the ninth. I'm self destructive but it's under control because I have you. You are all I need to keep my head on straight and to keep from yelling at the damn kids that we now practically own. But I'm not good enough for you. You don't let me be there for you. How can we have a relationship when you don't trust me, when you don't let me support you? It can't be one sided and…and I don't feel like you want this. "

"Since you know me so much better than I do, I'll let you be the judge." She stands and walks out with all the dignity as she can and makes it into the bathroom before the tears start.

**_-----_**

_3:09 p.m._

"Where are we going?" Elianna whines as they approach the counter to grab the tickets Addison called in on the way home to pack. She heaves the luggage up onto the stand and finally some nice gentlemen offers to take it over to the screening area so she doesn't have to deal with it anymore. "Montgomery." She says again handing over her old driver's license.

"It says Montgomery-Shepherd."

"Well, divorce happens." She glares back at the squirrelly kid behind the counter. She taps her navy heel against the reception counter impatiently as Ellie pulls on her skirt asking incessant questions about their departure. "Elianna let go of me. Now." Her tone is overtly harsh and she earns a death stare from the mother with four children behind her but she doesn't care until Ellie is crying in the middle of the airport. Then she cares. She pushes Kennedy forward and tugs the child along with her until she can properly bend down to the right level to assess the situation.

"You yelled Addie!" She rubs at her eyes when she asked what is wrong and then the sniffles turn to sobs and Addison is forced to pull her into her arms before they cause more of a display.

"I'm sorry. I was trying to do something and I lost my patience. I shouldn't have yelled." Lightly rubbing her back she knows that this emotional outburst is from lack of sleep and having her schedule completely out of whack for a day. She somehow manages to lift the crying red head onto her hip and awkwardly push the stroller forward. In this moment she kind of wishes that she wouldn't have left the room after the blow out with Mark. She should have stayed, should've fought to make him believe that she cares. She used to be a fighter.

Wandering towards their gate she knows that she wants him but showing it is a problem of sorts. Becoming open and vulnerable when she has had her heart handed to her so many times is difficult and it isn't like she doesn't have some things going on at the moment. They come to a halt just short of the gate and she arranges the now sleeping child into a chair next to her before she sits down. People stare. She has noticed that when you have children, people often stare. Sometimes they say things but mostly they just watch. Rocking the stroller back and forth with her shoe she thinks of the day when she left Seattle.

How Mark came racing in at the last minute to say goodbye. That won't happen this time because shoving people away constantly leaves you one thing- a sense of being truly alone. All alone in an airport with a soon to be screaming infant and an over tired, cranky first grader. Thinking better of dialing him and apologizing simply because her pride refuses to back down and be wrong, she turns off her cell phone and waits for them to be called. Called back to the rainy hell hole that started the downward spiral of her bad choices.

**_-----_**

_1:56 p.m._

"Maybe I should go after her." Mark says flipping impatiently through a newspaper in the conference room.

"Maybe you should give her space and stop freaking out like a woman." Pete retorts and reaches for the juice out of the fridge.

Mark sought out the only advice he could get. Cooper was with a patient, Violet had taken up with Naomi and banded against him and Sam flat out refused to become involved with any of it. He's called her twice but hangs up immediately when his conscious tells him he is right. He knows that she needed to be ousted. She needs to be taken care of for once and not just in the physical sense that she always uses him for. He wants to be in so badly it hurts but she is always holding one step back. Pete snaps his fingers for a good long minute before Mark comes to. "Hey."

"Oh, she has got you wrapped around her little finger."

"She does not."

"Does too. What it is about you guys and her?" He kind of gets it. I mean she is easy to have a crush on but she would never allow him in so he is going to play devil's advocate based purely on jealousy.

"Shut up."

He clatters his cup against the counter. "I give up. Go get her."

"Really, you think I should?"

"What's it matter what I think? You are going to do it anyway. Good luck getting her to trust you again."

"What are you talking about? She's the one-"

"She's the one with ten zillion personal issues. You are the one soaking it all up and using it against her to start fights; you really think she has the emotional strength to deal with a relationship?"

"I dunno. She said-"

"She said this, she said that. You know Addison better than she does from what I gather."

"I'm an idiot." He reaches around the back of the chair for his unnecessary coat. He points to Pete on his way out the door, "But at least I am not the one who has been hanging out with Violet too much. You need to pull it together quack."

**_-----_**

_3:28 p.m._

"We are now boarding first class passengers for flight 6769 to Seattle."

She stands gathering all of her things and children before taking on last longing look around the surrounding area. Her heart sinks a little deeper into her chest when she finally acknowledges that he isn't there to save her this time. The thought process results in her almost literally knocking down the man in front of her and a second later she is blushing and stepping backwards.

"I'm sorry, so sorry. I wasn't paying attention." He's tall she notices. Tall and lean and ten kinds of dark and handsome and then her heart is doing little flips.

His brown chocolate eyes glimmer back at her as he sees the cause of his stumble forward. He is unable to stop himself from smiling back at her as she fumbles to adjust everything. She does not look like a mother of any sort. "It's alright. Can I help you out with some of that?" He motions to the bags and she immediately freezes. "I meant with the bags. People get weird when other people offer to take their kids, I get it. Here I'll take that one and that one and then you will be able to walk without hitting people on the back." He reaches out to grab the odd bluish diaper bag that resembles a purse more than anything and another carry on.

"Sorry I hit you and uh…thanks." They march forward and after a few minutes she finally manages to get Ellie comfortable and has Kennedy resting against her chest when the man takes his seat across the aisle.

"Imagine seeing you here. I'm Ken by the way…well Kenneth but everyone calls me Ken." He projects his arm forward across the aisle and slowly she places her own hand in his.

"You may not want to know me in a few minutes Ken."

"Why is that?" He asks smoothing the front of his green button up.

"Well you see this one right here hates any sort of movement, even cars. So there will be screaming, tears and probably vomit."

"I'll take my chances. She seems fine right now. So what does your husband do for a living…you know I haven't gotten your name yet."

"Addison and I'm not married."

"Oh, well I just assumed. Beautiful lady walking around an airport with two rather cute kids, that there had to be some pretty lucky guy out there."

Her cheeks burn red as the compliments flow freely from his mouth. She takes a deep breath trying to not become flustered and babbling. "Nope."

"Well, lucky me then. I get to sit by you for a whole flight. What do you do Addison, if you don't mind me asking? "He looks around him and then drops his voice, "I tend to get a little nervous with take offs and I fly all the time but it is easier if I have something to distract me."

"Doctor. You?"

"Doctor as well. What field are you in?"

"I'm a surgeon. Neonatal."

"Impressive, a cutter. You all are too hardcore for me." He lets out a little chuckle and then finds her eyes again. "I'm in sports medicine. On my way to see one of the players for the Seahawks. Where are you headed?"

"Seattle." Her mind fills in the silence with something akin to seeing her ex-husband who was in a car accident this morning but she keeps it to herself. No need to divulge personal issues on a plane.

"Well maybe we should get together sometime while you are in town." The conversation continues as the taxing begins and after a short while they are in the air and Addison feels her heart still on the ground in Los Angeles. Good men always present themselves in her world when all she wants is someone else. Someone who probably isn't the best for her but she can't help it. She wants Mark.

**_-----_**

* * *


	22. Tell me that you're sorry

A/N: So...um I suck. It's been like a week and I'm thinking you all will forgive me and have yet to forget about this monster. Finals are done and if only my muse would come back out of hiding I could get some things done. Oh, well. Thanks to my beta for dealing with my writer's block and to everyone who comments. Enjoy!

**_-----_**  
**_I'm holding on your rope, _**  
**_Got me ten feet off the ground _**  
**_I'm hearin' what you say but I just can't make a sound _**  
**_You tell me that you need me _**  
**_Then you go and cut me down, but wait _**  
**_You tell me that you're sorry _**  
**_Didn't think I'd turn around, and say... _**  
**_It's too late to apologize, it's too late_**  
_- Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize"_  
**_-----_**

"You know she may have just taken off. She seemed pissed when she left." Cooper volunteers from his spot out of Sam's deck. Violet, Naomi, Dell, and himself had assembled themselves facing her house and waiting for some sort of movement in the blackness.

Naomi finally gives in and acknowledges the truth, she isn't there. She is already gone and she didn't bother to tell a soul. It hurts and it cuts her a little deeper than it should but she has been trying for weeks to be there for her friend and no one sees it. Least of all Addison. She excuses herself from the group with a murmur about picking up Maya and is surprised when Sam escorts her to the door.

"So do you think…I mean should we go?" Sam asks as he holds the door open.

She steps aside landing her halfway inside and halfway outside on the deck. "I don't know. Maybe she was trying to make a statement Sam. Maybe we let her do this on her own. I can't keep chasing her down and-"

He brushes a quick kiss against her temple before he can stop himself and mutters, "You are a good friend Naomi. She's lucky to have you."

Bolts of electricity run through her when his warm lips find her skin and she stands motionless in the wake. "Thank you Sam for…for everything. I know you don't have the patience to deal with drama and-"

"Say no more. I know Naomi. She's our friend even when she is being an out of character selfish jackass, that's still our girl."

She lets out a chuckle when it sounds as though her ex is talking about Addison like she is their daughter but then stops and turns to him one last time. "So do we go?"

"Let's give her a day. If we don't hear anything then maybe we should swing up there and check everything out for ourselves. That sound good?"

"Yeah. So do you want Maya tonight or can I keep her? I know she is supposed to be here this week but-"

"How about we split her and you come have dinner here?"

She eyes him unsure but then gives in without much more thought when he flashes her a smile. "Yeah, ok. Seven?"

"Let's say six. Maya has classes tomorrow."

**_-----_**

"You really think she left?" Cooper asks as he watches a storm brew offshore.

"Well yeah. You don't?" Violet counters sinking deeper into her chair and sipping on the beer she stole from Coop's hand thirty seconds ago.

"I just think she would have told someone. Like I don't know maybe Mark."

"They got in a fight Cooper. When grown ups fight sometimes they don't talk and they get real mad and then one leaves and-"

He cuts off her childish voice by snatching his beer back and giving her a smoldering glare. "Thanks Vi. Maybe next you can explain the creation of the wheel for me."

"I'd be happy to but perhaps we should start before that and work our way up. How much do you know about fire?"

"Hey." Pete announces breaking up the conversation seconds later when he returns with Sam. "So no news I take it?"

"Nada."

"Zilch."

"Zero."

"Zero."

"Hey I already said that!"

"Children. So anyone up for a rousing game of poker?"

"I'm in." Violet screeches jumping up from her seat.

"We don't have Mark." Pete nearly whines.

"But we have Violet." Cooper winks.

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Alright then. Let's do it." Sam replies exiting the room to find his cards.

**_-----_**

"Thanks Ken. You really didn't have to wait around and help me." Addison remarks trying to balance the infant in one hand and her purse and Elianna's cold hand in the other. She spent most of the flight holding back nausea and managed to only have to rush to the disgustingly little bathroom three times. The difficulties of traveling with small children are severely underrated. There were points in the flight were she was dead certain that if eyes could set her on fire she would have spontaneously combusted and then was suddenly feeling guilt for ever wincing when she heard children screaming in the far off distance.

"My pleasure. I couldn't even imagine how many trips it must have taken you to get into LAX." He grins and helps the cab driver load the trunk. He tips him without thinking and then rounds to the side where Addison stands shielded from the pouring rain. "So this is my card. My cell number is on that back and after this flight….if this one-" He says softly as he rubs Kennedy's back, "and this one," he says tapping Elianna's nose, "are the worst that you can do, I think we should definitely get together before you head out again. I will be in town for about three weeks so feel free to give me a call."

"I'll think about it." She says with a forced smile. "Thanks again for all of your help. Couldn't have done it without you, well I could've and I would've but it was nice to have you around just the same…and I am going to stop talking now."

"Good choice. Hear from you soon?" He questions hopefully as she slips into the cab.

"Bye Ken."

"Goodbye Addison."

**_-----_**

"Sam?" Naomi calls entering his house hours later. Maya follows behind her trying to adjust the straps on her backpack.

"Daddy?"

"In here." He calls out.

"Sam, we had plan- Hi." She stops short entering the room where they have been playing tournament style poker for the last few hours.

"I'm a little drunk." Pete acknowledges tipping his glass towards her.

"Me too." Cooper mumbles looking at his hand again.

"Well I'm not and I am kicking some serious as- Hello Maya." Violet grins.

"Hey Violet." She turns back to her father finally sensing that she is interrupting. "Daddy, I'm going to go work on some school stuff in my room."

Smoothing her hair he murmurs, "Okay, pumpkin. Naomi?"

"Huh? Yeah." She tears her eyes away from the scene in the next room as Violet begins another celebration dance.

"Sorry, we ran a little over time."

"No, it's fine. I should get going. I have some cases to prep for in the morning." Heading back the door she accidentally catches her elbow on the wall and before she can think to curse Sam is next to her holding it softly and examining what will be a very dark bruise. "Sam, it's fine. Let me go."

He steps back before her anger can take another form. "Hey Nae…you should um…you should stay. Have some fun for once."

"I don't think that is a good idea. It's your night for Maya and I-"

"Naomi. Turn the brain off and come have some fun. Besides you should put some ice your arm."

"I guess I could stay for a few hands."

**_-----_**

She knew where she had to go first and she knew where she wanted to go first. The problem lying somewhere therein. She had to go to the hospital; she gave him her word. Her heart wanted to see that he was okay and being taken care of her but her head had no desire to cart around children in the hospital that had witnessed her collapse. This is the place that she lost herself. For her it almost holds some sort of secretive power to take rational thoughts and turn them into bad choices. Taking a deep breath she exits the cab with her things and children before paying the driver to take her luggage to their desired location.

Cursing her heels she looks around the entrance of the hospital as the sun sets behind her. Setting her mind to be a steel trap is a little harder than she thought it would be and suddenly she feels concerned about the little bump that protrudes from her button up shirt. Most people don't recognize but this is Seattle Grace. She left here in one condition and to come back in another is to beg for the gossip mills to start, as if they hadn't been busy enough all day anyway. Shirking in her coat she readjusts her purse and leans down for Ellie's hand.

"Ready to go see Uncle Derek?"

"Where are we?" She rubs at her sleepy eyes with her free hand and signals Addison that the airplane was really not the best place to nap in the world.

"We are at the hospital. Uncle Derek had an accident but he's…he's ok and I told him that we would come see him."

"Accident?" She repeats the drowsiness draining from her voice and making room for pure fear.

"Yes. Just we need to go inside now." She tugs on the arm of the body that won't move an inch.

"No." She says in a defiant tone that does little to improve Addison's mood.

"Elianna. Move it." She drops her hand and starts walking forward with the still sleeping infant safely secured and more bags than she would like to be carrying draped across her shoulder.

Shaking her head and seconds away from stamping her feet Ellie bursts into tears and screams, "Addie!" She turns to the sound of her name to confirm her fears. There in the pouring rain stands a five year old screaming to her heart's content. "Ellie, come here." She motions with the only hand available. Her feet ache in their surroundings and she has conveniently misplaced her umbrella in hopes of never returning here, which leaves her with drenched locks and ruined heels. With a huff she gives in and returns to her niece who has no intention of stopping the little show she has begun.

"Ellie, I know that you don't like hospitals but they are good places. This is where people go when they get sick and doctors inside help them get better. Understand?"

"Yes." She whispers.

"Ok, good. Now let's go inside and get out of the rain. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can leave and get some dinner and go to bed. You tired?"

"Yes." She whines the tears returning to her face.

"Me too." She grabs her hand again and all but shouts when the girl refuses to move. Her patience lacking she lets her eyes dart around to ensure no one has seen her. She takes a deep breath trying to keep her voice low. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to go home!" She yells back causing Addison's temper to unintentionally flare.

"That's what you want, home?"

"I want mommy!"

"Oh, you know what? Me too, but guess what- we don't get mommy anymore, ok? We don't get to have someone. It's you and me kid and you better buck up because I don't have the endurance for this sort of stuff right now." She grimaces when she hears her own voice ranting and sees that it has only furthered the tears that are streaming down her face. "Damn it."

She walked away. Took the infant and is now seated on a soaking bench about seven feet from the tantrum throwing child. Glancing at her watch as it grows dark she hopes to get her inside before midnight because at the pace they are moving she may as well hail a cab and head back to L.A. She watches a few familiar faces pass by and gawk at the child but no one sees her nearly ducking under the collar of her coat. Finally she sees someone she knows and decides to chance it all because she has to get in the building and them out of the rain.

"Yang!" She shouts above the crash of thunder. The new resident spins on her heels trying to find the voice and when she finally locks eyes with Addison her face drops. "Yang, come here." She stands trying to meet her halfway but the younger woman refuses to move.

"Add-Dr. Montgomery." She struggles out lightly tapping her shoe against the puddle ridden concrete.

"Cristina." There's an awkward pause here because the entire situation is weird for both of them. Addison knows there is no way in hell Yang should be entrusted with children and all Cristina wants to do is go find Meredith. Eventually Addison gives in and voices her proposition.

"I don't watch children, I'm not on-call and you aren't my boss." Comes the reply before Cristina has the guts to start walking away.

"Cristina, please? I'll pay you or I'll get in you in on something good."

"You talk like you still have power here. I think you lost your mind in the sun. Bailey is my boss."

"I do have power here and you know it or you wouldn't have stopped walking away from me." Busted. Cristina turns back huffing and glaring ready to set the older woman's mind straight on how this is going to go.

"I don't do the little one. I'll take the one screaming in the rain that I assume it is yours as well. I want one hundred an hour and one hell of a surgery schedule tomorrow and I make no promises to not mention this or go out of my way to avoid other people."

"One thousand and hour and you'll be operating so much that you'll be begging to stop. You take both somewhere that no one will find you and you make sure that they well enjoy themselves while I am gone. I don't want them used to practice suturing on. Got it?"

"I'll take them wherever I want and deal."

"Two thousand and you keep them on hospital property." She waits for a reply and after getting nothing she throws down a few more rules. Reaching into her purse she grabs a handful of cash and forces it into Cristina's fist.

"You carry around money like that?" She gawks.

"No. You'll get your pay. I need you to feed the screaming one whose name is Elianna, not Ellie she hates when new people call her Ellie. And try to keep as much sugar as possible out of the menu; I'm the one taking her home." Pushing the carrier forward she announces, "This is Kennedy. She's colicky and basically hates everyone and sudden movements. She does like singing if you feel inclined."

"She's quiet now."

"And you'll do damn well to try and keep her like that, trust me." She sighs heavily stepping back free of her baggage temporarily. Though she would never admit it aloud she considers skipping off into the sunset and never looking back. She watches as Cristina clumsily shuffles everything and takes a look back at the sniffling child. "Cristina?"

She looks upward toward her old boss and tries to give a reassuring grin. She watched Bailey's kid, this will be cake. "Yeah?"

Addison points back to Elianna for a moment. "She's afraid of hospitals. You don't need the whole story but in short her mother was in a car accident about two months ago and…died. It's traumatic and she's going to fight you every inch of the way so you may have to be creative to get her in there and calm. I don't recommend brute force; she's a little stronger than she looks."

"I could take her."

"I'd prefer that you didn't. I'll give the nurses my new pager number if you need me and-"

Cristina cuts her short as she grows quiet, "Dr. Shepherd is in room 3490 down at the end of the hall."

"I know where it is."

"Right."

"Thank you for this, for everything." She makes her way back to Ellie in an attempt to explain what is happening and then walks away, ready to see what the destruction has done.

**_-----_**

"Dr. Grey I am not letting you in there." Bailey steams full well blocking the door in front of her.

"I have to go in there."

"Noted. Now step aside because it isn't happening."

Izzie tugs on Meredith's scrubs a little more trying to get her to move from the place she has been standing for more than an hour. "Mer, come on. He needs his rest and so do you. We'll go catch some sleep and then in a few hours I bet Dr. Bailey will let us in to see him."

"I wouldn't count on it Stevens." Bailey warns before setting aside the rough exterior for a moment and trying to help. "Meredith, I'm not going to keep you out of there forever. He is a patient right now and visiting hours are long over. You know when to come back so stop pushing me on this."

Izzie literally drags Meredith down the hallway and neither one of them focuses enough to see Addison stepping off of the elevator and speaking to one of the nurses before heading to the place where they once stood.

"Bout damn time girl." Bailey remarks. "Miss the rain?"

"Not at all." She replies pulling her coat off and giving it a little shake. She glances at the drawn blinds before turning back, "Is he awake yet?"

"No."

"How long?"

"Three hours."

"Ok, that's ok. Three, not bad."

"You want the chart?" Bailey asks casting her eyes downward.

"No actually. I just…I want…I told him I would be here when he woke up or rather I told someone to tell him that because someone called Sam and then-"

"I told him Addison."

She exhales deeply running her fingers through her wet locks before pulling them back into a ponytail. "Good." She lets her tired body lean against the wall and subconsciously runs her fingers along her abdomen.

"How far along?" Bailey dares breaking the silence between them.

"What?"

"How far along are you?"

She looks nervously around and then down at herself before tearing her hands away and tugging on her sleeves. "I don't-I'm not."

"Oh please woman. Who you trying to fool?" Although she is genuinely not interested in getting into hospital gossip she considers the broken woman in front of her a friend, and friends get to pry a little even if it is interesting.

"Myself… I guess. You always know everything?"

"That's my job." She mimics Addison's stance and together they slide down the wall until they are resting uncomfortably on the floor. In an uncharacteristic move Bailey grabs her hand and lightly strokes her soft skin leading Addison to tears. "Hey now, I'm not telling anyone."

Wiping at her eyes, she sniffles, "Yeah I know. I just…never mind. Long day, you know?"

"That I do. Now give me all the fun details because it's one helluva day for me too and then you can go in."

She pauses long enough for Bailey to repeat herself and takes a deep breath trying to think of the best way to relay the information she doesn't even want to believe. "14 weeks."

"14, Mark?"

"14, Derek, twins."

"Damn girl."

"Yeah." She nods and lets her head fall back against the wall. She is certain that it will be all over the hospital by tomorrow anyway. "Miranda?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Dr. Yang on call tonight?"

"No, why?" She eyes her suspiciously. The last thing she needs is one of her charges running around screwing things up like they always do.

"She is watching a few of my things. Just wanted to make sure they'd be looked after the whole time." She doesn't mention that they're kids; she knows it wasn't the best idea she ever had but then again neither was promising that she would be here.

"Ok. You wanna go in?"

"Is it wrong to say no?" She doesn't want the reality, especially since he isn't awake yet. She doesn't want to see the pain she has been visualizing without his calm voice to soothe her bubbling nerves.

"Not at all. You know, Addison if you need more time you could just check in to a hotel or grab a bed here somewhere."

"I gave him my word Miranda."

"You two got some messed up stuff going on." She glances back for a response and gets nothing. Dragging herself upward she helps Addison and then presses her hand to the metal handle. "Ready?"

"Yeah." The door swings open as her heart sinks a little farther into her chest and she gasps when she sees the full extent of the wreckage.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Yang, when did you turn into a baby snatcher?" Alex Karev calls from down the hall as he stalks toward Cristina with the rest of the gang. The tunnels used to be their secret intern place of hiding but now they usually have to fight for the privacy that the dark halls provide.

"Shut it Evil Spawn." She spews back trying to get both children to stop screaming. Getting Ellie into the building was no small feat and although physical movement of the child was not recommended that is what happened. Now she sits crumpled on one of the beds with fresh tears flowing down her face while Cristina works on figuring out what her sister needs. It's always about the infant and she notices these things.

"Someone gave Cristina children?" Izzie whispers to George who saunters on her right.

"Looks like it."

Meredith is doing her best to stumble along after them but she finds herself not caring about any of the scene in front of her. Slowly she glides until they stop and then they are all fighting for spots on the bed before she gladly drops to the tile and stares blankly ahead. She's a doer. If there's a problem she will do her best to either be involved and helping or just helping but Bailey has seen to it that she gets neither of those chances. And this, this walking around and waiting stuff, has never sat well with her.

"Seriously Cristina, what are you trying to do?" Izzie asks watching her fumble with Kennedy's blanket in order to get it wrapped correctly.

"I'm making some money, so shut up and help or just shut up. I've heard enough crying and complaining for a lifetime."

"I heard rumor of Satan being back in town." Alex chuckles before ripping into a bag of chips. "Some of the nurses said they saw her or something."

"I heard that too." George agrees and then hesitantly takes Kennedy from Cristina. He's a baby guy; surely he can get something accomplished.

"She's back." Cristina throws in nonchalantly. She couldn't care less.

"Seriously." Is the chorused reply.

"Yeah, these…" She points to the crying children, "…are her property apparently."

"Someone gave her kids?" George gawks.

"She'd be a good mom George; I bet she does better than you do. You have to sway not bounce." Izzie directs from her spot on the bed before turning to Elianna. "What's her deal?"

"Dunno. Something about hating hospitals. I had to carry her in here and I swear if she doesn't stop crying I'm going to give her a reason to cry."

"Cristina!"

"What?" She shrugs before turning to the child. "Are you hungry?" She asks in a manner so slow that one would think that Ellie was deaf and had to read lips. With wide pooling eyes she nods and sniffles before inching away from the strangers and backs against the wall. "Well let's relocate, you like chocolate pudding?" She asks with a devilish grin before escorting Ellie from the bed and throwing things at people to carry. Meredith lifts her shaking self from the ground, clearly overshadowed by the needs of Addison again.

**_-----_**

She knew it would be bad. Car accidents are seldom leaving good marks and scratches on people but this was definitely worse than she had estimated. His freshly shorn hair lays matted to one side and the discoloration in his face is alarming. The bruises from the airbag have set in already and from the hanging spot of the gown off his shoulder she can tell that there will be a nice seat belt line as well. His leg is cast and dangling and she isn't going to ask questions about the rest. Her mind can fill in the voids that her eyes create.

Taking a seat in the painful chair on his left she cautiously takes his hand and strokes lightly, willing him to awaken. Bailey peeks her head in seconds later and attempts to explain what happened again but Addison isn't interested in hearing it. Though typically, as a doctor, she would have read through the chart seven times by now and had everything memorized, she finds that she would rather sit in ignorance holding his hand.

They always say it's different to be on this side of the glass, to be the one whose life could fall apart. She's experienced it before, with her father and more recently than she likes to remember her sister but this is different, this is Derek. A man who she spent over a decade loving; living as though they were one even when it felt differently.

Unsure of how many minutes or hours may have passed she allows her brain to shut down. Its meager capacity is already overflowing and she just can't take anything else on. She hit her breaking point when those children were handed over on her doorstep weeks ago, but right now she is wishing that she was anywhere but here. Her eyes drift open and closed as she listens to the steady beeping and her hand never once leaves his.

**_-----_**

"You think we should go?" Sam broaches again as he deals what was supposed to be the last hand of the night. Their little game drags on with Naomi in a staggering lead and Violet definitely being a sore second place.

"Sam, I don't know. I'll call her tomorrow."

"You think she is going to answer?" Pete scoffs scooping up his cards and doing his best not to grin when dealt three aces.

"She might."

"She might not." Cooper replies before huffing and throwing his cards down. He gave up on the poker face hours ago and knows everyone, especially Violet could see right through it to begin with.

"We could all go." Violet laughs and then stops when she sees four very serious faces looking back at her. "I was kidding guys, that's a horrible idea….we can't…we shouldn't…"

"Yeah, yeah. No, we couldn't just shut the place down. We have patients that deserve our attention." Sam rationalizes and at the same time still finds the idea of a getaway very appealing.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Three hours later Mark finally finds the last available seat to Seattle for the night and boards a little weary of being stuck in coach for the duration. He scuffs his shoes along the disgusting carpet and finally finds his row, middle-middle. Wedged in between a man too large for his chair in the window seat and a woman with a baby on the aisle. 'What luck', he grimaces and then reminds himself that the anger should be allocated to the appropriate person, Addison. The woman who skipped town without a word and leaves him chasing her once again; always chasing after her.

**_-----_**

"You really think that graham crackers and chocolate pudding are dinner material?" Izzie asks as their trays clatter to the table still unable to beat the sounds emitting from the infant's mouth.

"She likes both and when they are in her mouth she isn't crying, so yeah dinner material." She returns pulling the lid off her salad and spearing a tomato.

"Have you ever watched children before, I mean why in the world would she pick you?"

"I don't know. Can we stop talking about the damn kids? She is in Shepherd's room and when she comes back I am a few thousand dollars richer. End of story."

"You really are heartless." Alex pipes up kind of impressed before Meredith breaks her self imposed silence.

"She's with Derek?"

"I'm assuming that she's not out operating. Where else would she be?"

Meredith falls quiet again but quickly makes her way up and begins walking out fully intent on finding Bailey or just storming the room. Sure, maybe she and Derek aren't together together, but they are more so than he and his ex-wife could possibly be.

"I don't think that she is headed someplace good." George mutters and continues playing with Kennedy's sock covered feet.

"Not it!" Cristina calls and then receives a stagnant line of glares back except from Alex who follows suit a second later ending with his explanation.

"We aren't her mother, let them brawl. It would be hot." He shrugs and looks around, "I'd pay to see it."

Rubbing her hand over her eyes and pushing deeply Izzie finally gives into the maternal urges. "George just hand her over." He reaches in slowly and lifts the squirming baby. Instead of the traditional cuddling, Izzie swings her legs out from underneath the table and lays Kennedy down on her stomach across them. She lightly rubs up and down her spine until the cries begin to become muffled and then there is silence. Gaping wide she allows her bright smile to come out of its cage; at least she accomplished one thing today.

"What did you do?" Cristina asks scrambling over to make sure she isn't dead.

"I didn't do anything."

"No, you did something." Alex returns trying to look over George and Elianna.

She huffs a little and then lets on, "Oh fine. I know a little about children, so sue me. I'm still a surgeon."

"That was like magic. You are the Baby Whisperer." George smiles and then releases a long breath.

"No, seriously if you hurt her Barbie, I will-"

"I didn't hurt her, calm down. You'll get paid I swear but I think this one may have some spinal issues."

"Ad- Dr. Montgomery said she's colicky." Cristina counters feeling a little guilty for not noticing anything.

"She probably is but that doesn't mean that she couldn't stand some realignment. The birthing process is traumatic and stressful, right Alex?"

"Huh, yeah…whatever." Pretending to be uninterested he jumps from his seat and heads off to find something to do.

"Oh, he so wants back on the vagina squad." Cristina whispers.

"Vagina?" Ellie asks digging her spoon into the pudding in front of her.

"Oh, no…you're…you're Addison gets to field that one. Make sure you remember to ask her, ok?"

**_-----_**

Scowling he throws his large suitcase into the back of his cab as the driver hides out from the rain in the car. He crawls into the back seat on his cell phone and explains where to go. He's called close to every hotel in the greater Seattle area and still has come up with nothing. Minutes that feel like hours later he arrives at the imposing entrance of the hospital. When he left, he certainly didn't think he would never return he just didn't figure it would be for these reasons.

For years it was Mark and Derek and that eventually turned into Addison and Derek or Derek and Addison, whichever person preferred what saying he still isn't sure. They were both self righteous and he commonly got it wrong in the presence of the other but he couldn't care less because he was busy pining over something he never should have had. Given the opportunity he would have jumped the gun and had a two week relationship with Addison, maybe three and then they would have been done. But now, now he feels old enough; finally feels of an age where he could commit and she can't. The tables have been turned and his patience is dwindling.

He makes his way through the halls bypassing every nurse who looks in his direction. His feet drag heavily on the tile because as much as he tries to hide it he is legitimately concerned about his friend not to mention feeling a little guilty about yelling in his face and sending him away that night. He finally finds the right room numbers and sets his pace a little quicker; challenging himself to get in there and have a look at the debris of someone he probably once would have died for.

"Mark!" Comes the voice before he is nearly being knocked over by someone hugging his knees. He peers down to find Elianna clinging for dear life and Yang making her way down the hall with a group of others who he'd prefer never dealing with again.

"Yang!" He shouts and she quickens her stride until she is in front of him. "Care to explain why you are letting children run down hospital hallways? Better yet care to explain why you have children in the hallways?"

"I…uh… no, sir."

"Where's Addison?" She points without more words and watches him stalk off leaving Ellie behind again. Before Cristina can reach a hand to the small shoulder she takes off again and darts into the room when Mark pushes it forward.

**_-----_**

"We've made better choices." Pete murmurs as he begins loading luggage into Sam's car.

"Isn't that the way it always starts?" He returns picking up one of Violet's carry-ons.

"This is stupid." She whines leaning up against the door in the dark.

"It's just for the weekend." Naomi states as she comes from the house bringing more bags. "It'll be fine and she needs all of us, well maybe not Pete but-"

"Hey now. She'd need me if I let her need me which I don't. So end of story."

"Jealous much Pete?" Violet asks smirking when Cooper comes back out with Maya.

"We need another car."

"I'll drive." Violet says as she jingles her keys. "I can't believe I am doing this."

"She needs you, well Ellie needs you besides look me in the eye and tell me you don't have a flight back booked for six hours after we land." She receives no reply, "That's what I thought. We could all use a break anyway. Think of it as team building."

"Team building in Seattle, why does that feel like an oxymoron?"

"Yeah and why doesn't Dell have to go?" Cooper continues after rounding the back to Violet's car with Pete.

"Dell has to rearrange everything. He keeps that place running and we need someone here."

"I had patients." A chorus of "Me too's," follow and Naomi jumps in the car and slams her door in response. Who cares if it isn't a well thought out plan, she is tired of thinking and all she knows is that Addison needs someone and Mark is mad as hell. There must be a mediator.

**_-----_**

"Addison." He says, devoid of any kindness.

Her eyes burst open to find Ellie scurrying onto her lap and Mark standing in the doorway and Yang hot on his heels. "Mark." She whispers.

"Elianna, go with Dr. Yang. I need to talk to Aunt Addie." He lifts her from her spot as she claws at Addison's shirt and then settles her against the tile and nudges her out of the room. He takes the seat on the opposite side of the bed and begins searching for the missing chart.

She waits a few minutes before she takes a deep breath for strength. "You said you wanted to talk."

"Actually I want to yell and I don't feel like doing that in front of Derek so it can wait." She watches as his eyes wash over his best friend and he gulps back all emotions.

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"I am."

"You're not so it would be really fucking great if you stopped saying it like it was supposed to mean something to me. You left town Addison, without telling anyone so no…you aren't sorry. You don't care about anyone but yourself so why don't you just…just sit over there and shut up for once."

His words cut like daggers and she finds the tears flowing before she can stop herself. She whimpers in the silence and dares not to raise her eyes.

"Stop crying." Is the only reply she gets and for once all she wants is to wriggle her way into his lap and let his strong arms hold her until she can breathe.

**_-----_**

Somehow she managed to curl herself into the chair and cry herself to sleep with the coat draped across her knees. He watched as she sniffled and gulped for air trying not to reach out and touch her. He's attempting to stay strong, trying to make a point but he has never done well with her tears. It nearly cuts him inside to hear the sobs and witness the shakes but it had to be done. He tiptoed from the room an hour ago to read through the chart and then promptly returned to stand vigil over his best friend. Ex-best friend, whatever.

Thinking better of calling the Shepherd clan he slouches back into his chair and then reaches for Derek's hand. He brushes over the knuckles of the warm fingers before clasping it. Seconds later a monitor roars to life and then he being pushed into a wall by a group of nurses and interns as they gage readings and then Derek is gone again. In a blur of noise and movement he has been left with Addison standing on the opposite side of the room with her own set of open eyes and a pounding heart.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"Thank you." She whispers again taking Kennedy from Izzie and letting Mark scoop up Ellie. She snuggles into his neck and he takes a deep breath looking at his quasi family before heading away from the group.

Derek's bleed forced him into surgery yet again and Bailey ushered everyone out of the building telling them it would be hours before he was out and that they needed to go rest. She caught Meredith Grey lurking in the hallway but a quick glance in that direction sent the new resident back to the locker room. Now Mark stalks away with a sleeping five year old dwarfed by his masculine shoulders and a purse in his free hand as he jabs at the elevator button and waits for Addison to catch up. They haven't spoken since he told her to stop crying and he is on the verge of taking it back just so he can hug her; because right now, though he wouldn't admit it, he needs a hug too.

After cramming into a cab and making their way towards her hotel reservations, (a place that he had called and they had denied giving him any information) they put Elianna in the adjoining room and now are in the middle of a silent stand off. Addison moved first pulling her heels from her feet and chucking them to ground before taking a seat on the bed and rubbing her feet, with her back to him of course.

There's a couch and he could sleep there, he really could, but part of him is aching to feel her legs intertwined with his and her back crushed into his chest as she takes unsettling breaths. He sighs and tugs his shirt overhead before tossing it into the corner and taking a seat on the opposite side of the bed, facing away from her.

"Say it." She whispers in the looming darkness.

"Say what?"

"Yell at me. Get it over with."

"I can't just conjure up a fight whenever you want Addison, that's stupid." He unbuckles his belt and then tugs his pants off throwing them by the shirt and then settles himself against the pillows forcing himself not to run his fingers along her spine.

"You hate me?"

"No." She doesn't say anything more, just grabs a pillow and heads to the couch herself. She won't sleep. He knows it and she knows it but it is all about making a point.

"I hate this." He broods as she moves away.

"Me too."

"Addison!" He nearly shouts as he watches her disappear into the couch.

"What?" She responds dejectedly just waiting for the whole thing to escalate. She is tired of fighting; tired of having to show that she wants him. What's the harm in giving up for an evening?

"I hate you."

"Fair enough." She sits up and looks back. His face says that he doesn't mean it but his tone indicated otherwise so she had to see for herself.

"No, I hate who you are right now. I hate that you don't talk to me." These sorts of conversations never come easily for him and he compares them to having teeth pulled without Novocain but it must be done.

"Okay."

"No, not okay! Not o-fucking-kay, alright?"

"Yeah. Sorry." It leaves her lips before she can stop herself.

"You don't get it. Stop saying that! Stop saying everything…just stop. Where are you, where the hell is your mind?"

She shakes her head in response and tugs the long sleeve shirt a little lower to hide her hands. Biting the inside of her lip she turns toward him.

"No, what are you doing? You don't do this. This isn't you. You don't tug on your sleeves, you don't cower in corners when Naomi goes to hug you, you don't succumb to fights and agree with everything and you don't pretend with me. You used to tell me things, now I'm thrown in with the rest of the world and expected to believe that you are dealing just fine. So I hate you, this…this person you have become. I want my Addison back and I'm more angry than you can imagine that I have a girlfriend who doesn't bother to tell me when she leaves town and I have to fucking chase her down. It's getting old. I tell you to pick and you run away. Maybe I should take it as a clue-"

She turns her head away and responds for once during their heatless fight. "Yeah, maybe you should."

"Maybe we should stop…before we do something we'll regret." He huffs and flips over dragging the red hotel comforter with him.

"Maybe you should just say something for once instead of holding it in and taking it out on me. I'm doing my best! I am and I'm sorry if it isn't enough for you. I'm sorry if I'm not good enough for the womanizer Mark Sloan. Heaven forbid I be hurting a little, heaven forbid that I be struggling when you are around. You don't fix everything; you don't sprinkle magic dust onto everything and make it all better. You can't fix me! I can't…fix me, so maybe…maybe if you don't want me in this state then you should leave."

Though her passion finally arose and gave a meager speech he still doesn't see her. There's no life behind her dim eyes and her stupid hands are still buried in his old long sleeve Yankees shirt. The gray of the fabric washes out her face against her sweeping hair and her eyes are sunk in from lack of sleep. She looks fragile and very un-Addison-esc and he's tired. He's tired of watching her hurt and not being able to help.

There's a good part of him that wants to just hold her and ignore the words, trying to make it all better. He's a doctor; he makes people better for a living. He's also a man. A man in a relationship and he feels like an utter failure for not being able to comfort the nightmares that plague her sleep and the heart ache that effects everything they do. But the bigger part of him has had alarm bells going off for weeks. The annoying voice in the back of his head, the same one that forced him into the sand that day, is telling him to run as fast as his feet will carry him. She gave him the out.

**_-----_**

* * *


	23. An island sinking

A/N: Not gonna lie I struggled with this chapter and I sufficiently hate it but I feel it is necessary to the progression. 10 days, yeah I suck. Anyway, thanks to betamaster for catching the mistakes and the everyone who keeps on hanging in there on this one. We shall see the dying off of the angst arc starting soon. Enjoy!

**_-----_**  
**_I'm in a shattered state_**  
**_And my heart keeps breaking._**

**_I_****_'m an island sinking_**  
**_Slow and frail inside._**  
**_I've tried to make this work_**  
**_A thousand times_**  
**_So don't walk away from me._**  
**_…_**  
**_And if I fall from this_**  
**_Will I get back up again_**  
**_Will you carry me_**  
**_When I'm broken up inside?_**  
**_…_**  
**_You wanted everything_**  
**_Well I'm sorry now_**  
**_If you walk away from me_**  
_-__Until June, "Don't Walk Away"_  
**_-----_**

"Do you want me to leave?" He growls at her figure on the couch and gets no reply. Typically, he would have already been dressed and out the door. He doesn't need to be told twice but it's Addison and walking away really does not feel like the answer here. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and emotions and pads over quietly to the couch. Crouching down he finds her curled onto her side with the tears falling silently. "Addie." He whispers before wiping some of the warm moisture off her face.

Batting his hand away she replies, "Go away Mark."

"I don't think that is the right choice here Addison. I'm mad, you're mad. I'm exhausted, you look dead beat and we all know that they few hours provided by Kennedy are precious…so I say we get into bed and sleep for all that she'll give us."

"You hate me."

"I shouldn't have said that." He knew he'd regret it as soon as he said it but now with the look on her face twisting his own stomach he feels like the biggest jackass in the world.

"No, you should say what you feel. It's only fair." She murmurs hiding her face behind the sleeve of his shirt.

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant I wish I didn't have to watch you hurt because it makes me want to beat the shit out of whoever is causing you to cry all the time and I can't…I can't do anything." He pauses pursing his lips and then gives in, "You were right. I can't fix this but I could make it a whole lot worse by walking away right now." He hates these moments of sharing and caring, they do not bode well for his brooding exterior and manwhore ways but nothing about this situation is remotely normal so he attributes the break in form to late night hours and not enough caffeine and perhaps her hormones driving him up a fucking wall.

"You could go."

"I know and so could you, but the point is neither one of us has and we are here together."

She shakes her head and draws in a long shaky breath. "No, I can't leave. I'm stuck. I'm stuck here with stupid broken Derek and these kids! These kids I didn't ask for and I can't do anything. I don't want these kids! They deserve their father. I didn't ask for any of this. I'm stuck on the stupid roller coaster and no one will turn it off already. I've had enough, I've had enough." She repeats over and over until he scoops her up and letting her heaving body collapse onto his bare chest. She twists uncomfortably trying to find the place under his chin and at long last she discovers it and calms herself.

Stroking the back of her head he pulls the blanket from the ground and settles his feet on the couch while holding her tightly. He sighs with the knowledge that he can't do anything but be here for her and that perhaps is the most frustrating thing in the world. The best thing to do is to stay silent. He can't screw things up that way.

**_-----_**

She awakens with the cries coming from the corner and the realization of how stupid last night's breakdown was. She doesn't want Mark anywhere but next to her, however, her conscience is telling her to let him go, to let him be free from the chaos she has been thrown into. She quickly picks up Kennedy and paces into the hotel's version of a kitchen digging through the diaper bag for a bottle. Every ounce of her body screams with aches and her voice is stripped bare as she tries to soothe the infant. After a prolonged feeding and equally long burping session she finally settles back against Mark praying for at least another hour of sleep before having to deal with reality.

**_-----_**

Grumbling his eyes pop open to the sound of someone's cell phone and before he can stop her, Addison has flipped open the phone and given a very unreceptive hello. One brief conversation later they are up for the day and trying to feed Kennedy and get her dressed again. Waking at four am really leaves a lot to be desired but fortunately Ellie was so tired she slept through everything and with any luck will stay down for a few more hours.

"So do you want to talk about it?" Mark asks digging through the small suitcase to find a pale green dress and secretly hoping the answer is no. He holds it up only to receive a head shake and begins riffling through the mounds of tiny outfits again.

"Not really. My throat kind of hurts."

"Yeah, ok. But if you do, I'm here, ok? Don't go run off and do something stupid. Promise."

"Promise." She whispers placing the wiggling infant down on the bed. Mark takes a seat next to her and runs his fingers along her bare stomach. A delighted sound comes out of Kennedy's mouth and Addison spins around to see what happened. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I was just running my fingers on her skin in hopes that she would stay quiet."

"Do it again, I think she liked it." He takes his index finger and traces the same path from her neck to the top of her fresh diaper and she emits the same sound.

"Is she laughing?"

"I think she may just be. Who knew that she could do anything besides scream, she had me fooled."

"I did that. I made her laugh." He smiles, trying new patterns on her arms and legs as she kicks with joy.

"You did that." Addison agrees and returns to taking over the clothes picking for the day.

Suddenly she is met with two strong arms around her waist and Mark's lips on her neck. Taken aback she spins around. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to kiss you if you would shut up about it." He mumbles before leaning in and sucking at her bottom lip until she gives permission for his tongue. Full of energy his mouth ambushes hers and when he pulls back they are both breathless.

"What was that for?" She asks nervously straightening her mismatched pajamas.

"That was for letting me learn that I don't hate kids. Not even the loud ones." He smiles before returning to Kennedy and placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "I think that maybe she likes me now."

"Don't go getting your hopes up just yet." Addison asserts and then finally finds the long-sleeved shirt and pants she was looking for. "Hey, does that mean you are willing to learn how to dress her so that she doesn't look like a circus clown for once?"

"I thought she looked cute." He retorts without taking his eyes off the baby in front of him. They should be enjoying her and Elianna but most of the time they feel like babysitters. These small moments, though he would never admit it aloud to a soul, kind of redeem the whole mess for him and silently he thinks that she was dead wrong when she said he would be a terrible father. He didn't, at the time, have any basis to argue her opinion but now he knows with certainty that he could be better than what he was given to work with.

**_-----_**

Trailing off the plane the five Los Angeles residents stumble and collapse into the baggage claim area of SeaTac. Violet lies half awake slumped over Cooper's lap and Naomi rubs her tired eyes as Sam massages her back lightly. This leaves Pete, the solo adventurer, to sight the luggage and drag it off the carousel so they can finally get some sleep. Waiting around at LAX for the early morning flight is living somewhere up there with the all-nighters he used to pull in med. school on his list of stupid ideas.

"Can I get a little help over here? Contrary to popular belief I am not Superman and these twenty or so bags are not going to load themselves onto carts." He shouts in their direction waiting impatiently for them to come do their own dirty work. For his part he still can't believe he agreed to come along, hell that anyone agreed to come along.

"Oh, alternative medicine guy has a superhero complex." Violet mumbles after being shoved from Cooper's legs.

"Yeah well at least I don't have a crush on a co-worker." He spits staring at both of the couples who immediately disband themselves.

"Uncalled for man." Cooper replies lifting his own black rolling suitcase to the ground.

"Well maybe if you hadn't been in half of my seat than I could have slept and wouldn't be so cranky and unforgiving."

"Stop. Everyone stop it. We're all tired and if we don't get some sleep I think we may kill each other." Sam explains trying to reel the group in.

"Yeah, Sam's got a point. Let's get our things and go grab a few hours before heading to the hospital."

"Whoa…wait. No one said anything about another hospital."

Putting his arm around Violet Cooper leads her to the doors. "It's ok Vi. Besides I bet they didn't even have to shave his pretty hair off."

"Oh shut up."

**_-----_**

There's a fundamental shift that occurs when dealing with mourning. Try as they might people stop caring. It isn't really intentional; it's more of a safety mechanism. Sane souls can only deal with things in that measure so often before they begin to break themselves. People will use distance to cure the problem. Some like to say you have three months before people grow sick of you and others will say it's a week. Human nature dictates that we are self involved beings and inevitably patience will wear thin.

At this point, nearly two and half months later, even she is sick of herself. Watching as her delicate fingers place the studs in her ears she takes a good long look in the mirror. It all feels like it was yesterday, the pain is fresh and unattended to and feels as though its festering is infecting her soul.

It's no wonder that Mark hates who she has become; she, if possible, hates it more but she can't stop. She has literally grown uncomfortable in her own skin and is itching to break free. The pulling down of sleeves, the toying with the hems of shirts, and the tapping of her shoes against surfaces are all good examples. Classic examples of nervous people but she has nothing to be nervous about except that she is terrified of herself. She's walking a mighty fine line. On a tightrope daring her feet to slip off into dashing for another city, breaking away from everyone she knows or doing something insanely idiotic like finding a clinic that will do late term abortions.

In the face of catastrophe she needs the hope that she can't find within to come from someone else. She needs a port in the storm; an easy out clause. For the first time in her life she needs something else beside herself to rely on. And that, that is absolutely terrifying to Addison Forbes Montgomery.

**_-----_**

At the tender age of the newly appointed number five, Elianna knows a few things. Most of which are not useful in the real world. She knows how to tie her shoes so they stay together when she plays on the swings, she knows now (after Mark) how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she knows how to paint what was once her family, and she knows that no one wants her anymore. Somewhere in there, using childhood logic, she decided that she must have done something or her sister must have done something to make her existence disappear in an instant. She's off the radar and the one person who loved her unconditionally is living in the ground but somehow with angels who fly. It makes zero sense.

After being reassured that this was no one's fault she felt a little better. Mark was fun to play airplane with and he always made her laugh and Addie would read with her sometimes when she wasn't too busy. She got to help decorate her new room and even held her sister but at some point things began to crumble again. Now all she knows is that she has no mother (for whatever reason that no one cares to divulge), the word 'accident' is equally associated with something horrific in her mind, her father went away and doesn't care to come back and finally after being privy to a thin wall last night she knows that Addie doesn't want her either. Maybe if she's quiet again someone will care and pay attention instead of dragging her places that she has no interest in going and sticking her with total strangers. Maybe she can get to the place with all the fun angels and be with her mommy if she is on her best behavior.

**_-----_**

"He's not awake yet Dr. Grey." Miranda yells toward the resident as she begins down the hallway.

"I know that but visiting hours start in two minutes and I have to see him. You don't have to understand." Meredith says as she pushes her way past the shorter woman.

"He just got out of a major surgery. If you were in my shoes, would you let you in? And think very carefully about how you would answer this Grey."

She scuffs her shoe along the wall and feels like screaming. "No, I wouldn't but then again I wouldn't have let Dr. Montgomery in yesterday either. That was gratuitous and we both know it."

"The patient requested her before he went into surgery. It's my job to make that possible regardless of what cat fights you may or may not have going on. Now go back to the locker room or on call room or whatever. I will page you as soon as you can see him…" She drags off for a second looking at Meredith's wrinkled scrubs, disheveled hair and sad eyes. "…and I understand. I do and I know you understand me so please stop making this difficult."

She loses it there. The moment Bailey brushes against her pale cold hand the tears finally begin to fall. She was doing a damn impressive job before that, she had made it a whole day or whatever it was keeping it bottled up. Pushing it deeper and deeper until she could see him. She allows herself to be escorted out of the hallway and seconds later Bailey has found Cristina, like she will be of any use, to help out. The door clicks shut and Yang is the one comforting Meredith this time. Something eerily reminiscent of the wedding that wasn't reversed.

**_-----_**

Tiptoeing from her bed Elianna shivers when her feet hit the cool carpet. As her body readjusts to the temperature of the air she digs in her own suitcase for something to wear. She's been dressing herself for ages and finally settles on a sweater she never used at home and some jeans from the bottom of the suitcase. She slips into the clothes and heads back to her bed wiggling her feet under the covers and propping the long book up on her chest. She may not understand every single word or pronounce them correctly but she has had "Charlotte's Web" read to her so many times that she knows the whole story by heart anyway. Toying with the pages she makes sure to read every word and then slowly flips it.

Escaping into a delightful world of farm animals and spiders her concentration is broken once again by the cries in the other room. She huffs and shoves the book aside, trying to peer through the crack in the door. Finally, giving up she makes her way into the main room to find her Aunt trying to soothe her sister and Mark come from another room half dressed.

Addison tugs on the infant's shirt willing it to stay down as she bounces a little pacing the room. She turns to find Ellie standing dressed, sleepy-eyed and with knotted hair. "Morning."

"Morning." She replies before heading back to her room and shutting the door.

"When did she turn into a sullen teenager who hated the world?" Mark asks looking around for his shirt.

"No idea." Addison replies rolling her head from side to side.

"You okay?"

"Always great Mark thanks."

"You know what I meant Addie." He growls pulling his shirt overhead. "I think we need to talk."

"I agree."

**_-----_**

Talking never came as the morning progressed and left them with hysterics from the younger one and a full blown temper tantrum about burnt toast from Ellie. Addison all but threw her hands into the air and walked out but they finally made their way to the blue rental car in the parking lot. Silence cluttered the damp air as they secured the girls and then set off for the one place neither was particularly interested in taking them.

Slipping out of the car and taking a deep breath Addison reaches around for Elianna's door and prepares herself mentally for the next showdown. She watches Mark easily undo Kennedy's car seat with a smile and shoots him a glare hoping to ward off his happy mood. Having the presence of mind to just not say anything about where they were she opts on holding Elianna firmly against her chest hoping that perhaps she won't notice the parking lot fading in the background.

**_----_****_-_**

"Should we just show up?" Violet asks throwing down a comb on the sink. Curly hair and rain do not mix.

"That's the plan. Addison won't pick up her stupid cell and neither will Mark so I guess we have to meet them on their own ground."

"That kid hates hospitals." She chirps out throwing her hair into a messy quasi ponytail. Suddenly the rubber band snaps and lashes out against her arm sending her into a string of expletives and a small dance.

"Maybe they found a sitter."

"Oh, yeah. Like Addison is going to let those kids out of her sight." Violet rolls her eyes and presses down her maroon sweater in a mock attempt at looking good. Her flight leaves in seven hours and she may as well make the best of the rainy hell hole that she is determined to never visit again.

"Never know. She's done weirder things lately."

"She needs support." Violet suddenly erupts emerging from the bathroom ready to take on the day. When she agreed to share a room with Naomi and let the boys fight over the two beds in the adjoining room she didn't realize she was signing on to dissect everything about her coworker. Sometimes it would be really nice to not have to work all the time. To be the one who isn't constantly gone to for advice.

Naomi raises her hands and remarks, "Snappy today?"

"No. Just not enough sleep and… never mind." She sits down on the bed reaching for a shoe out of her opened suitcase on the floor.

"No, say it. Whatever it is you need to say, just it's better when it's out in the open."

"Oh yeah like whatever you and Sam have going on?"

"We don't have anything going on. We are here for Addison."

"I thought we were teambuilding. So far the only thing we have done is rip each other to shreds."

"We don't do well without caffeine. It's no shock."

"That's not it." She grumbles and hastily pulls on her other shoe.

"Well, dearest shrink what is it?"

She ignores the dig because they come at her all the time. At some point, in some world there will be a time when psychiatry is not a joke. When it is seen as a meaningful tool; now is not that time. "It's her."

"Her who?" Naomi asks, slipping into the bathroom for her allotted time before they have to meet downstairs.

"Addison."

"I'm not following." She calls out.

"It's her. It's Addison. We are practically killing ourselves over this woman. You have drug up your entire staff to Seattle for what? What do you want me to do? Talk to her, coerce her to share, try to find some sort of new magical anti depressant that won't counteract her pregnancy? You want me to convince that small one to stop using her imagination and to put the crayons down? I just, I don't understand what the hell we are doing here Naomi."

"We are helping."

"We are hurting. We are hindering! We are interfering!"

Huffing she lets her mascara clatter to the sink and turns back to the woman on the bed. "Where is this coming from? I mean what-"

"This is coming from everyone Naomi. I know you mean well. You are an amazing friend but this… you can not fix this for her. You can't protect her from what's already happened and she's not letting anyone hold her up. We are wasting our time and exhausting our energy." Her voice drops barely above a whisper. "The divorce was bad enough. This, if we keep at it, will ruin us. We need fun. We need stability in the office. We need a balance, not drama. We're not a hospital."

"I know that."

"I think that maybe they should stay here."

"Addison and Mark? You want me to what? Fire them because her sister died and they need to be here because Derek was in a car accident?"

"Fire them because we are sinking Naomi. We are plummeting and…it's because of them."

Reaching for her makeup bag Naomi stares into the mirror. Her reflection appears to be well rested and manicured but her soul feels anything but. Maybe they have a point. "Have you- Does everyone feel this way?"

"I haven't talked to Sam but Pete and Cooper and Dell think that it would be best if…they remained out of the practice. We need to take a vote."

**_-----_**

"Maybe this was a bad idea." Mark grumbles as they pile into the elevator with the predictably squirming Elianna who is silently crying this time for a nice change.

"I told him…never mind. You can leave if you want." Addison remarks pushing in the button again as the doors close.

"You told him what?"

"I didn't tell him anything. He wanted me here when he woke up and so I am. End of story."

Mark clears his throat and tries to think of a good way to word things. He gives up and just says it brusquely, "The night before Derek's accident…before he came back he stopped by the house."

"What did he want?"

"You." He states shifting his eyes to the innocent, and for once sleeping, baby in front of him.

"And you didn't get me because-"

"Because you had just fallen asleep after a major freak out."

"I didn't freak out." She counters growing defensive.

"You left a patient unfinished and in an exam room for Dell to figure out and then cried for thirty minutes before deciding that you couldn't work anymore and needed to go home. It more than qualifies."

Ignoring his angered tone she asks, "What did he say?"

"He…uh, he asked me to remind you about needing an answer. What was he talking about?"

"Nothing." She reaches down to grab Ellie's hand as the elevator begins to bounce and leaning over she accidentally tips the contents of her purse to the floor. Mark cautiously begins picking things up until he reaches a business card. Twisting it through his fingers he reads the name once, twice, three times.

"Who is Kenneth Whitman?"

"No one." She states snatching the card form him and continuing on with her mess.

"He's someone. What is going on? Sports Medicine?"

"Nothing Mark, just…I can't deal with this right now. Let's just get in there and see Derek already."

"Sure." He mutters, disbelief mounting with every step they take forward.

**_-----_**

"Ready?" Sam asks stepping into the girls' room. Violet is perched on the bed leafing through the room service menu and Naomi has herself in the bathroom. "Where's Naomi?" He gets a simple finger point as the rest of the guys ambush the room.

Knocking lightly on the door in front of him his mind races with possible ideas. "Woman you in there?" He asks gruffly before softening his voice and stating her name. She pulls back slightly with tear dried onto her face before letting him in the room.

"What did you do?" Cooper asks plopping down next to Violet and stealing her reading material.

"Nothing."

"You always do something Violet." Pete states walking to the window to take in the view. So far, what he has seen of Seattle hasn't been half bad. If you can get past the wonky traffic on freeways and rain the place is actually quite pretty.

"I didn't. I simply told her about what we were talking about last week."

"The bets on how long it would take Sam and Naomi to get back together?"

"No genius but why don't you go ahead and say that again a little louder. I don't think they have enough reason to be angry with us yet."

"Whoa-ho-ho. What do you mean us?" Pete asks turning back around.

"I was telling her about Addison. How we all thought it would be better for us if she went to a hospital or stayed here."

"You said that out loud!" Cooper screeches smacking her shoulder. She shrugs and prepares to fight back before Pete interjects.

"If you guys could keep you hands off on another so we could talk about this that would be great. Violet, what we said was in total confidence. We were just venting."

"But I thought-"

"You thought wrong."

"There's something new for her." Cooper smirks before being slapped on the back of his head. He rubs it whining, "Geez Vi…physical abuse, what's next?"

"We agreed. We said that she needed to go. We talked about it for close to an hour and now you are going to tell me you were just venting. Just because you two aren't brave enough to voice concerns doesn't mean that you need to lie."

"What a mess."

**_-----_**

"Are you crying?" Sam asks taking a step closer.

"No!" Naomi shouts back in a preposterous tone. Brushing her hand he relents and hops up onto the counter and takes a seat.

"So what's the deal then?"

"Violet asked me to fire Mark and Addison. She said that everyone agrees."

"First I heard of it." He shrugs.

"Me too but apparently they took a meeting and discussed it. "

"Want me to break out the belt?" Sam asks with a smirk, hoping to calm her.

"No Sam. They do not need encouragement to call us Mommy and Daddy. It's ridiculous right? I mean where do they get off thinking that they can undermine me?"

"And me." He points out. "Maybe they have a point Naomi."

"A point of what? So she's been having a hard time. We would all be in shambles if we were in her place."

"Cooper doesn't have any siblings. His parents got smart after they had him."

"You know what I meant." She scowls crossing the bathtub and sinking down to the ledge.

"Let's slow it down and think about it. Yes, they've both been in some trying times. Are they both still doing their jobs?"

"Yes." She nearly shouts before he shakes his hand and holds up a hand.

"But she has had to leave-"

"Twice Sam. Twice she had to leave. She's delivered babies, healthy babies. She's had patients, done her paperwork. I mean we have no right to kick her out. Hell, we're lucky to even have her. Thank god for mid life crises'."

"And Mark?"

"Mark is Mark. He's finally starting to fit in with the group and his transition working with Charlotte King has been better than anyone expected."

"But-"

"No. This is wrong. We can't. I mean- hell he's under two contracts. She-"

He stands and then stoops down to her level and then takes her hands in his own rubbing lightly. "Work aside, Naomi. I think that firing them is unnecessary but I wouldn't disagree with putting them on indeterminate leave. The practice needs them, that was a smart move but we need to think about our friends."

"She needs to come home Sam."

"Maybe she will. Maybe she won't but I think we both agree that she needs to not be working, at least for a week or so. Let her get her life straightened back out. We can't do this for her."

"I want to." She whispers.

"You have to let them go sometimes."

"I know." She says biting her lip and trying not to think about how in four or five years Maya will ditch her for school and then she will be very alone.

"So game plan?"

"Hospital."

"Take the grumpy face off." He demands helping her stand back up. She plasters a fake smile on and heads toward the door.

**_-----_**

"Dr. Montgomery." Meredith snares as she sees the older woman approach with her entourage. Since visiting wasn't permitted and there was no way she was getting any form of sleep, she decided to hole up in the hall and wait it out.

"Dr. Grey." She nods curtly before reaching for the door handle. The busy air is replaced with the sound of familiar monitors beeping and Mark walks in first taking the girls with him when Addison starts to stall. "You coming in Dr. Grey?"

"Not allowed. Have a great time in there though." Snidely she shifts her feet against the tile and lets her legs fall flat against the hard surface. With a huff she takes a glance in the room to see Derek's closed eyelids and bruised body.

"Thanks." She saunters through the opened door and closes it with a thud letting her body relax against the faux wood. Her stomach drops again as her eyes flit over his image, now complete with a shaved head and nice bandage. Kennedy grows fussy as Elianna stops dead in her tracks and then hides behind Mark's legs.

"It's bad." He whispers turning around.

She gulps and nods trying not to think of all of the things Derek has said in the last week. The needing her, the wanting her. If only she would have made up her mind then he could have stayed longer or come back earlier and not been involved in that wreck. She knows, deep down, that the responsibility lies nowhere near her but subconsciously the battle begins to brew. The swirling images of broken glass and blood on the pavement come back to mind and then she is turning towards the door without so much as another thought. Gasping she slams the door shut and slides down along the wall coming eye to eye with the shabby resident.

"That good huh?" Meredith asks noting her paleness. She gets no response as Addison's body weakens and slumps giving way to her closing lids. "Dr. Montgomery?" Shuffling on her knees across the tile she snaps her fingers in front of the redhead and gets nothing. "Addison?" Her eyes dash around as doctor mode kicks in. "I need a little help down here!" She calls.

**_-----_**

Mark steps into the hallway the same time the members of OWG do and from there it's really just a race to catch up to the gurney that is transporting Addison down the hall. At a serious advantage he catches Meredith, Miranda and some random intern first. His heart rate only slows when he sees that her eyes are open. Drooping but open.

"I'm fine." She mutters to the group above her trying her best to look fine.

"You most certainly are not. Lay your ass down. Sloan get out of the way." Miranda barks pushing him aside.

"What happened?" He asks to no one in particular.

"We don't know yet." Meredith whispers moving along side and happy to have a job; happy to have something to keep her mind off Derek.

Fear subsides to anger by the time Naomi and the gang catches up. He drops her hand and turns back to sit with Derek. At least he would be appreciative. He brushes through them without explaining anything and seconds later is back with the girls.

Wordlessly, Pete follows him leaving the rest to monitor Addison. He slips into the room unnoticed because of the commotion at the end of the hall and pauses when he sees where his feet have landed him. "She's going to be fine." He states bending over to greet Ellie. "What's her deal?"

"She hates hospitals." Mark whispers removing Kennedy from her place and cradling her against his chest when the wails become unbearable.

"I could help with that."

He spins around. "Help with what?"

"The crying. Seriously, just let me try."

"I don't think that is a good idea. Addison doesn't take too lightly to the idea of acupuncture, let alone acupuncture on an infant."

"No acupuncture then." He replies not bothering to mention the needles on Addison's first visit to L.A.

He gazes back to the monitors that tell him that his friend is breathing and alive even if he feels anything but. "What do you have in mind?"

"Just some simple adjusting." He reaches out for the baby and Mark relents taking a seat in the corner.

"Don't hurt her. I'll get all the blame." Always, his mind finishes as his mouth snaps shut.

He mimics Izzie's actions of the night before carefully placing her against his knees and rubbing down her spine. The cries stifle and her body relaxes against his. "See?" He states smugly.

"What did you do?"

"Just a little pressure in the right spots. Sometimes that's all it takes."

"Uh-huh."

"It's true. Come here, I'll show you assuming you have good hands."

"I have excellent hands quack, I slice people open."

"Only to make them prettier."

"The world needs pretty people." He states watching the correct places to touch. "That's it?"

"Yup." He replies handing her back to him. "I could watch them if you wanted to go check on Addison."

"No." He asserts and goes back to the balancing act of best friend and pretend babysitter.

**_-----_**

"What happened?" Naomi questions as Sam joins Cooper and Violet in the hallway. The bossy shorter woman all but threw them out and now they have managed to lose Pete.

"She was…she was fine. She went in and then came back into the hallway and then she passed out. I don't know." Meredith states starting to hook up monitors as Miranda finds the right equipment.

"Again Addison?" Naomi asks holding onto her friend's hand tight.

"Oh, like I pick this." She mutters sarcastically.

"Dr. Grey, I don't need you anymore in here. You can go back to what you were doing."

Meredith glances around her uncomfortable position realizing that it isn't all that uncomfortable. Somewhere between being able to help Satan and actually feeling useful she fell into a new routine. One that didn't involve hating the woman in front of her for no reason. "If it's alright, I'd like to stay. I found her, she's my patient."

Miranda looks to Addison who shrugs it off and closes her eyes when Miranda begins. "Dr. Grey, this doesn't leave this room. I know that sometimes everyone's confidentiality abilities like to waver given an interesting case but this…this is one of our own. If you don't think you can keep your mouth shut then you can go."

"It's shut." She replies as her boss begins to undo the buttons on Addison's shirt. When she sees the sonogram machine it all clicks into place and suddenly her heart is in the bottom of the bay again. Things snap together in rapid fashion. From Derek's disappearances to his ignorance of her existence, it all makes sense. "You're pregnant." She whispers almost inaudibly before Dr. Bailey responds in kind with, "Oh. Gold Star for Grey. Are you going to stand around and stare or are you going to help?"

"Sorry."

"It's ok." Naomi replies without realizing who the girl in front of her is.

"Grey, page someone…page Combes to come help with this." She states trying to mention the name of the person who took Addison's position.

"Nae, can you…will you go get Mark?"

"I don't think we need anyone else in this room." Miranda counters before receiving a glare from the friend as she exits the room.

**_-----_**

"Hey, what happened?" Sam asks softly steering Naomi aside when she leaves the room.

"Don't know yet. They are doing an exam and running some labs."

"Great."

"Yeah." She replies with her head down. Tilting it back up with his hand Sam looks deeply into her eyes as Violet and Cooper watch in the background.

"This is not your problem Naomi."

She grins slightly before replying, "Yeah, I know. I need to go get Mark, any ideas?"

"Derek's room." He drops his voice. "I talked to those two yahoos about what we were discussing. They want a vote."

"I know, we need to deal with this first."

"Later then." He asserts.

"Later." 

**_-----_**

"Mark?" Naomi asks tiptoeing into the room. Her eyes lock on Derek's figure wide awake.

"Hey." He replies somberly.

"Addison wants you. Hey Derek, good to see you awake."

"Thanks." Derek mumbles through the beeping noises and tubes.

"Not interested." Mark replies looking to Pete.

"Sorry, I'll just wait with the rest of the group?" He questions sliding from the room into the hall unsure. He kicks the wall with his tennis shoe before stuffing his hands into his pockets and heading back. It's like the worst grade school field trip ever.

"Where's Addie?" Derek questions a little groggy.

"She…well she was in the-"

"Don't." Mark demands cutting her off with a stern glare and a shake of the head. "She's taking care of something. She'll be in later. You should sleep." He tries to think of a joke to lighten the air before standing to converse with Naomi in the hall but gets nothing. "Elianna stay in here with Uncle Derek and don't touch anything, understand?" She whimpers an affirmative reply as her eyes widen and look to the bed.

**_-----_**

"She wants you. She needs you!" Naomi shouts back again after he asks her to leave.

"She needs a lot of things. None of which I am."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Gripping the door handle he clenches tighter in frustration.

"Then why did you come to California. Why would you pack up your entire life for her?"

"I came for a change. I came to get out of the rain. So what if she was there? So what if we had a rocky ridiculous version of a relationship? It's just another sign stating that maybe I should give up. Maybe I should be the better guy and walk away."

"She doesn't want you to walk away."

"She doesn't know what she wants anymore Naomi."

"She does. You're going to walk away now? After everything that you've been through with her… just to give up and roll over like you're already dead. Classic Mark. Run away when it gets tough. Poor Mark can't be bothered with other people's problems. Poor Mark can't deal with having to try for more than a one night stand."

"Stop it." He growls back as she continues chastising. "This is between her and I. I tell her we need to talk; she agrees and then completely disregards the proof of that conversation ever happening. I woke up to a good morning-"

"And now?"

"And now…" He drags on. "Now, I'm not doing this with you. It's none of your business."

"What do you want me to tell her? She's upset and scared but had the presence of mind to shove me out of the room to get you. What am I supposed to say?"

"Tell her whatever you want." He walks back into the room only to remove Elianna and hand off Kennedy to the woman standing dumbfounded in front of him. Addison promised. Promised to not do something stupid; to stop harming herself and although he doesn't have the whole story he doesn't need it.

"Mark!" She shouts as he closes the door in her face and returns to his best friend.

**_-----_**

Addison's eyes follow the swinging of the door only to be smacked with the realization that Mark isn't following along behind Ellie or Naomi. She doesn't ask. Her friend's face says it all. She mouths a silent apology and helps Ellie onto the bed gently.

"Hey Ellie." She says putting forth her best fake smile.

"Are you sick?" She asks seriously before burying her face into Addison's neck. She's taking the only comfort she can find after an afternoon spent staring at a very purple man.

"No. I'm not sick. Hey, look at me." She pushes back against the bed and tries to make eye contact with the child that is clinging to her. Elianna lets the tears dribble down her face when her Aunt pulls back. It doesn't really matter that she doesn't want her anymore; it only matters that she has someone. She sits up against the railing on the bed and Addison repeats, "I am not sick Elianna, I promise."

Tugging her back down Addison sighs and runs a few fingers through the matted curls. Naomi watches silently and it is Meredith who dares to break the moment by bursting back in the room with lab results. "Add- Oh, sorry."

"It's fine."

"I just wanted to let you know that is was just your blood sugar and that the chief is on his way in to yell in place of Bailey who was pulled away for an emergency appendectomy."

"Great." Addison mutters. "So I can go? I need to get back to Derek."

"Dr. Bailey said that that was up to the Chief so, no. Not right now anyway. He'll be in shortly." Escaping the scene she runs into Mark who is pacing the hallway.

"Sloan?"

"Oh, hey. How is she?" He asks letting the concerned side of his emotions out of the box.

"Fine. Blood sugar. You can see her."

"No, that's fine. I just wanted to check. Thanks."

Darting back to Derek's room he slips into the hard chair and watches the steady bounces of the machines. Placing his head in his hands he scrubs against his face before letting out an exasperated sigh. Every part of his body aches to be able to hold her hand and wash away the exhaustion with soft kisses and light touches but he won't allow himself to do it. He won't be the enabler. He's spent their entire relationship chasing after her. Whether it be different states, cities, buildings or cars he is always following ten steps behind her. Sinking a little further into the chair he lets his mind explore the finer points of no longer being attached to her.

He could return to L.A. Continue at the practice, they had worked together before; they could certainly do it again. He would furnish his house; make new friends; make a new life for himself for once. Something that didn't involve the love triangles and drama. Create a life he has never known. The only problem with that is he doesn't know where to start and leaving her sounds more painful than staying. Drumming his hand along the railing of the bed he checks the clock. The time has come for no longer living in purgatory. It's either time to drop into a fiery death of heartbreak or to soar above and try and attain the impossible with her. They need to talk. It's her turn to do some chasing.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

He nearly sprints past his new co-workers having some sort of debate in the hallway and bursts through her door with energy he hasn't felt in days.

"Mark? Are you- Is Derek ok?" Addison asks watching him gasp.

"We need to talk." He states simply standing at the foot of her bed. "First are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm-"

He cuts her off taking charge. "That's all I needed."

"Ok." She watches curiously as he rocks back and forth on his heels and changes his posture to carefully cradling her blanket covered feet.

"We need to talk."

"You said that already." She points back meekly.

"Do you want me?"

"What?"

"Do you want me? Do you want me in your life from here on out until we both drive each other insane and one of us kills the other?" He inarticulately tries to piece together the puzzle in his head. It's time for him to take charge. It's time for something to change. It's been too long like this.

"I…uh, Mark where is this coming from?"

"Jesus Addison, just answer the question."

She huffs and crosses her arms over her chest while locking eyes with the anxious man four feet in front of her. "Yes. Alright, yes. Are you happy?"

"No."

"You want to leave?" She back peddles replaying last night's conversations.

"Nope."

"Then what Mark? I'm too tired for stupid little games right now."

"Good me too." He takes the few steps necessary to close the gap in between them and leans down placing a light kiss on her chapped lips. Baby steps. Pulling back he grins.

"What? What are you doing?"

"We're fixing this." He replies taking a seat next to her.

"I told you already that you-"

"You said I can't fix you. So here's my deal. You want me around then you start fixing yourself. I'm not looking for overnight success here Add but you have got to do something. I was terrified seeing you hauled away again and then I was angry that you allowed it to happen and…it's all you this time. You want me? I want to see some fighting."

"This is ridiculous." She recites pulling her hand back from his grasp.

"It's your choice Addison. The ball is in your court. Pick me and we will work through it together. You want to try and keep going it alone then I am flying back to L.A. I don't need this mess but I do love you and I deserve the chance, for once, to see where that can go." He sighs relieved that he was finally able to convey some sort of feeling and leans back against the chair as her expression expectedly drops.

Closing her eyes she relives the words. Time for a change.

**_-----_**

"This is the worst vacation of my life." Pete mutters as Naomi tries to get the group in the hall under control. They have spent the better portion of thirty minutes bickering over whether or not to even vote.

"Stop it. Everyone stop!" Sam shouts. "Here's what we'll do. Since Naomi owns the largest portion of the clinic…" Raising his voice again when they begin to clamor he finishes, "She has the final say. It's fair. She hired them without our consent anyway."

"So why should we even vote?" Violet asks. "What's the point?"

"The point is I want an idea of how you all really feel and then I will make my decision. Sam and I talked over other possibilities this morning so here's how we are going to do it. Three votes. One for indeterminate suspension, one for mandatory vacation of one week for them to fix things before they can return and one for firing them. We can figure out the rest from there. So everyone close your eyes."

"Oh, come on. We are adults." Cooper whines.

"Close them!" Sam shouts back. They do as instructed and Naomi holds her breath before speaking.

"All those in favor of firing both raise your hands, ok." She watches finger flitter and hands twitch. "All those in favor of suspension? And finally vacation. Good open 'em." She sighs as her mind sets into the web work necessary.

"So?" Violet asks insistently.

"Time for a change."

**_-----_**

****

* * *


	24. Something that you are trying to say

A/N: At one point I thought that I had a really good turn around time and then I saw that it had been eleven days and I still suck. Oh well, this chapter is about baby steps because healing is ugly but they'll get there. Thanks for sticking with it and the comments and of course to **escapismrocks** because we all know she catches my mistakes. Enjoy-

**_-----_**  
_Is there something that you are trying to say_  
_Don't hold back now_  
_It's been a long time since I felt this way_  
_So don't hold back now_  
_I purposely forgot about_  
_Loving anyone_  
_Cause I'm the only one who has_  
_Who has been stepped upon _  
_---_  
_In the mourning I can see the sights_  
_No wonder I could never keep you satisfied_  
_In the mourning I can see inside_  
_Myself and all the things that you were trying to hide_  
_- Tantric, "Mourning"_  
**_-----_**

"So?" Mark questions toying with the fingers of the hand that has the IV attached.

"So what?" She responds dejectedly. She's anxious waiting for Richard, waiting on Derek to be ok, waiting on just one day to not hurt.

"We're giving this a go."

"We're giving it a go." She repeats more for her own benefit.

He returns to the almost comfortable silence smiling. Staring at the sleeping child against Addison's side and the other one on his own lap he finally feels right in the world. He's happy to have won for once. Happy that the fight feels like it's over even if it is just beginning. It's better to have someone on your side than to be battling alone.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"And the verdict?" Violet presses again out in the hallway. She knows what she voted and she has a pretty good inclination but needs some assurance.

"The verdict is- how about we go grab some drinks?" Naomi replies looking to Sam for help.

He has no idea what the outcome was. He can hardly believe he is here let alone voting on whether or not to kick out two of the most profitable doctors their practice has seen in years. Sometimes it is about the money; sometimes it's not. "Yeah, umm…sure. There was a bar across the street I think."

"Oh come on!" Cooper shouts as soon as the group begins moving.

"Save your breath." Pete whispers and sulks as his feet hit the tile. If ever there was a small part of him that had hoped for a real chance with Addison it is now gone. He kept his eyes cracked, no one noticed.

"He knows." Violet tells Cooper when they approach the elevators.

"I don't know anything. Naomi knows, I just don't care."

"Oh right. You don't care about Addison. Nice try man."

"Stop." Sam orders feeling more and more like the only adult with every passing second. The doors fly open and scrub clad people rush forward leaving way for the elevator's emptiness.

"She could just tell us already."

"Yeah Vi, like the suspense is really killing you. This was your idea anyway. We'll be rid of them for awhile no matter how you spin it."

She hadn't intended for it to come across malicious and uncaring because she is neither one of those things. As the psychiatrist she was merely trying to restore balance, trying to help and as the group begins to mutiny around her she feels her walls crumbling down. The doors slam shut again startling her eyes and heart. Live and learn she repeats over and over in her head.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"I need ten minutes Dr. Bailey, that's it. I swear." Meredith pleads from outside Derek's door.

"You delivered all the lab results?" She eyes her suspiciously.

"I did."

"Grey-"

"I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do. Ten minutes. Come on I saved your ass today." She dares careful to watch her boss's expression.

"Saved my ass? Oh, no you did not just say that to me. If anything-"

"I helped you with Addison. I was there, I did everything you asked. Please."

"Fine, go. But you get three minutes and so help me Grey is anyone sees you in there I'm going to claim ignorance and feed you to the wolves."

"Deal." She slips inside the closed door after noting Bailey's figure standing watch.

"Derek?" She squeaks out trying not to look at his appearance. The dark bruises across his face do nothing for the bandaged head and the sunken eyes do nothing for his slow rising chest. He eyes pop open expecting to see someone other than the woman before him.

"Mere-" He croaks out.

"I'm not supposed to be in here and Bailey gave me three minutes so I just wanted to say no hard feelings. Well, there are hard feelings because you sure as hell should have told me about Addison being pregnant but then again you didn't ever manage to mention that you were married until she arrived so I guess it's fitting. Our whole relationship was lies. I have enough lies in my life without you."

"We aren't together." He whispers feeling his throat cut with every note.

"I know that. I'm just saying for the…the record- you're an asshole and don't expect to come running back to me this time when she turns you down."

"You really know how to cheer a guy up who just had surgery." He replies bitterly not wanting the fight. It's useless between them, he just realized it long before her and he's certainly not going to apologize for that.

"You aren't my patient. I don't have to keep your spirits high. I'm actually kind of enjoying your lack of hair and the varying shades of darkness across your skin. You deserve every bit of it." She bites back from continuing knowing full well that she is exhausted and frustrated and angry but none of it will amount to anything useful. Spinning around toward the door with about thirty seconds left she hears him ache out his final words.

"I'm not sorry. I'm going to be a father and I'm not apologizing for that Meredith. I made my peace with you and I am trying to put my life back together."

She's only got one thing that will trump the hurt she is feeling from him. "She doesn't want you anymore. She wants Mark. Put that back together why don't you." Angrily she grabs the handle and pushes herself from the room and heading for the nearest closet to cry off the emotion. It's over, finally over and nothing about it feels good.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Swirling the red wine and watching it slowly slide down the side of her glass she maintains eye contact with no one. Pete and Cooper gave up five minutes ago and headed to the dart board and Sam is lightly caressing her hand under the bar table while Violet scrolls through her phone. A simple trip, in theory, is turning out to be the hardest thing she has done in awhile. Her intentions were pure and friendly but the consequences are anything but.

"It was a close vote." She meekly whispers over her glass. "Maybe we should vote again."

"That isn't the way this works Naomi." Sam states motioning for the guys to come back. Pete manages to down another shot before sitting and waiting for all eyes to fix upon their boss; their leader.

"Well, if you don't count my vote then it was a tie."

"Between?" Cooper pushes.

"Firing and suspending. No one seems to think that a week will be enough."

"And if we count your vote?" Violet asks annoyed. Surprised, because she wasn't one of the ones who voted to fire them she glances around the table and tries to figure out which two men it was. Definitely Pete, it would have to be him but Sam would be unexpected and she never figured Cooper would do that.

"Then they are suspended or whatever you want to call it. I'm not firing them. We have no basis for that. They are good at their jobs."

"No one ever said they weren't Naomi." Sam counters and Violet knows that it was him. She sends a wink over to Cooper who is tied up looking at the girl leaning over the bar.

"I can't believe we are even doing this. I'm sure it's exactly what she needs to hear." She sinks her head into her hands and waits for them all to leave but five minutes later when she lifts her head they are all still present.

"What if we do all we can before we leave? What if we make it sound like it isn't that bad of a thing. It's all in how you spin it Naomi." Violet begins looking longingly at her empty shot glass. Time to make amends.

"When did you turn into a media guru?" Cooper teases.

"I'm not…I'm just saying. Let's make it seem like we are doing this for her, for them and then that way she will use the time appropriately instead of worrying about her job."

"I'm sure she has other things to worry about Violet." Pete mutters into the table.

"Why are well all depressed? Let's help. That's what we do. That's why we are here anyway, right? I mean I wasn't drug up here at ungodly hours to play in the rain. I am not here out of my own volition and we sure as hell better get a bonus or a gold star for this."

"She's right. We were here to help and look at us. We were fine before them; we'll be fine after them." Cooper reaffirms looking to Sam.

"We sound like we were the one's that lost a sister. It's pathetic." Pete states.

"She lost more than her sister." Violet counters. "She needs you Mr. Mopey. Are you going to be one of the dwarves or are you going to stop sulking over someone you never wanted for more than a one night stand and help?"

"Help." He whispers angrily. Being called out in a bar in the early evening hours in not his idea of a good time.

"Well, alright then. That settles it. Right Naomi? Sam?"

"Yeah sure." Sam replies.

Tilting her head up at the group of people who are constantly supporting her she offers a quick smile. "Let's help."

"We need a game plan. Things tend to go to shit when we just jump in." Pete notes referring to the unfortunate plane ride.

Time ticks off the clock in the corner before Cooper bursts to life. "The zoo!"

"What about the zoo? Or are you talking about our lives?"

"No stupid. What does Addison need more than anything?"

"I take offense to being called stupid." Pete points out raising his hand. "She needs a new life."

"No. She needs time. Time away from the kids, Cooper you are brilliant!" Violet screams and then offers him a high five.

"What are they talking about?" Sam asks Naomi.

"I'm stupid and the zoo lover is brilliant?" Pete urges from his spot a little miffed.

"Well let's think about it. We should take the girls out. Give her time alone or time with Mark. She just needs a little break."

"She needs a miracle and…maybe some drugs."

"Well, it's a good thing that's what we all specialize in. Right herb boy?"

"Yeah. Whatever."

"Good, let's go." Cooper stands first hastily headed for the door followed by an excited Violet, a confused Sam, a tired Pete and a bewildered Naomi.

**_-----_**

"So we'll just walk in and what? Steal the kids?" Pete asks as they emerge from the elevator again only this time with a group buzz. It's certainly better to be a little tipsy when watching kids, at least in his opinion and he knows that Violet would agree.

"No, I'll talk to her. You all will wait in the hall." Naomi demands as they close in on the room. Strategically, as her best friend, this is all she has got short of an intervention…not that one isn't in order.

"Mommy is mad." Cooper whispers to Violet sending her into a rage of giggles.

"I don't even want to know." Sam replies shaking his head. Pete throws himself against the wall and slides down to the floor. There's something about being this close to death that makes him uneasy. He isn't ready for it yet; he can't handle the hospital smells and emotional issues at hand.

"Addie?" Naomi asks as she pushes the door back to reveal everyone either asleep or well on their way to dream land. "Oh sorry."

"It's fine." Mark replies standing with Kennedy. "I can go if you two need time to-"

"It's fine. You should stay. I need to tell you both something. Ok, Addison?" Her friend hasn't dared to look up yet and she needs some sort of confirmation to move forward.

"Ok."

Naomi takes a deep breath and sends up a prayer that this goes well. "We were all talking-"

"Who's we all?" Addison asks looking at the door confused.

"Everyone. Pete, Sam, Violet and Cooper. Well Cooper didn't really talk but that's not the point."

"What is the point?" Mark asks sitting back down again.

"We took a vote."

"A vote?"

Addison knows full well what that means. She knows protocol. She's good with rules and regulations. Obviously Mark didn't pay any attention when he was hired but that isn't for her to clarify. Naomi finally answers. "We want you two to take some time off…away from the practice."

"What are you-"

"Addison, maybe that's a good idea." Mark cuts in watching her nostrils flare in preparation for battle.

"How could that be a good idea? We have patients. I have an obligation to them. I came here to get Derek figured out. I'm planning on being back first thing Monday. I told you that before I left Nae."

"I know." She replies softly taking her friend's hand and stroking. "You need time Addison. We've had enough, you've had enough. Please don't fight me on this."

"How long?" Mark dares a few minutes later cutting into the silence.

"It's indefinite. Take whatever you need but we do want you back. We just think that this would be best for everyone, you know?" She asks Addison and gets nothing more than a glare. Surely she didn't expect taking away her favorite play toy would go over well but the silent treatment is a stretch even for her.

"Is that all?" Addison asks her eyes set forward a few minutes later.

"No." Stroking Ellie's splayed hair she explains about trying to give them a free day just for them, or just for her before Addison vehemently refuses. She decides to close with, "It would be good for them."

"How could being outside all day in a smelly zoo with filthy animals be good for a colicky two month old? Or how about an emotionally unstable five year old? They don't need a field trip. Thanks but no thanks."

"Addison." Mark growls serving as a warning. "I say take them. It's not like they don't know children, we'd be sending them with a pediatrician and four other doctors."

"Three and a quack." Addison corrects quickly like it matters.

"Well, quack got this one to sleep so he is golden in my book." He replies giving Kennedy a light pat on the back.

"Fine."

"Thank you." Naomi adds before slipping out the door to tell the others the news.

"That was rude, even for you." Mark says as soon as the door clicks closed.

"We just got fired. Did you miss that? Sorry if I'm not feeling ten kinds of cheery for you."

"We didn't get fired. She said she wants us back."

"She has to say that."

"We need the time Addison. You need the time."

"I don't need anything but to get out of this damn bed." She responds shifting Ellie so her kicks land against the bed railing as opposed to her side. She never noticed the fitful sleeping before this. Just another thing to add to the list.

**_-----_**

"So Miss Ellie what's your favorite animal?" Cooper asks looking down at her prepared to swing her up onto his shoulders so she can have the best view possible. Picking them up early in the morning was the best Addison would do, apparently sleepovers weren't allowed yet. Behind him Naomi and Sam struggle with Kennedy and Pete has the pleasure of holding the diaper bag.

Shrugging Ellie tries to remember what her favorite animal even is these days. She hasn't given much thought to things like that lately. "I don't know."

"You have to know. Everyone has a favorite. I like the elephants with the big ears and swinging trunks and huge feet." He offers with a smile as she looks around at all the people wearily with huge eyes. She'd cling to his hand if she thought it was an option.

"Sorry, sorry I'm late." Violet gasps for air finally catching up. Flip flops and puddles are not the way to go.

"Bout damn time Vi, what did you do last night?" Cooper offers teasingly.

"Nothing. I just had to do something. Actually I may need to leave early." She says in a higher pitch and gives a nod to Naomi.

"Alright, wait. What is going on?" Sam asks pushing the stroller forward. He can't even remember the last time he had to push one of these around but he can definitely concede the advances in baby technology.

"Nothing." Naomi responds quickly shirking inside her coat and staring up at the rain clouds. So far the day had been pleasant but as she was learning that didn't mean anything here.

"I like kitties." Elianna finally gives up to Cooper after some more prodding.

"Well, they have really big kitties here like lions and tigers and-"

"Bears, oh my!" Pete finishes before adding, "She's five, stop talking to her like she's deaf and has to read lips."

"She's…I'm not. Hey, I work with kids all the time thank you very much."

"Yes, clearly they rub off on you." Pete snips back with a grin.

"Let's go see some tigers." Sam interjects.

**_-----_**

After being successfully yelled at by Richard for damn near giving him another anxiety attack she was released with strict instructions to never pull a stunt like that again. By the time she escaped the paper thin gown and IV visiting hours were officially over and she was only allowed in to see Derek for a brief minute to explain she would be back the next day.

As the sun creeps in behind the heavy cream colored drapes she squints her eyes closed and throws a pillow over her head. If ever there was a day to stay in bed, today was it. She can feel her body crashing and the urge to sleep away the waking hours only intensifies when Mark slips in beside her again. She doesn't say anything when he wraps his arms around her and pulls back, in what has now become their normal sleeping position. She doesn't fight back even though she is beginning to feel like one of the caged animals at the zoo Elianna is presently traipsing about in.

She vaguely remembers being awake periodically through the night with Kennedy and then getting both the girls ready before Naomi showed up with the group. The knock on the door propelled the itch to be unseen and she dashed into the adjoining room while Mark handled all conversations. As his fingers drag along her arms she realizes she can't remember the last time she said anything aloud. Surely there was something this morning…maybe or maybe not. She isn't sure anymore. Feigning sleep she ignores him when he murmurs something into her knotted hair. Eyes fixated forward staring at nothing but the colored wall she feels her throat constrict and chest tighten. Slowly, taking deep breaths to keep up the façade she lets the tears trickle down hoping that they go unnoticed by her bed mate.

He knows she's crying. He wants to chalk it up to exhaustion but that's not it. Her tears are always frequent now and the only thing he can figure to do is holder tighter while she rides it out. Saying something surely would not earn him any points so he pulls back a little harder and lets his own legs tangle between hers before placing a kiss against her red tresses. It's going to be a difficult journey.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"You hungry?" He asks when she emerges into the kitchen clad in the same boxers and old grey t-shirt of before. They slept away a good portion of the day before he decided that it was time to get up and left her for the last two hours.

Rubbing at her eyes she asks, "What time is it?"

"Almost 1."

"PM?" She asks with a gaping mouth.

"Yup. So hungry? I was thinking we could grab something, maybe at the deli by the hospital and then go see Derek. What do you think?"

Shifting her feet and leaning against the doorway she tries to process how exactly she managed to sleep that long. "Has Naomi called?"

"Not yet. I figured you might want to check in though and she promised to call at three. She offered to keep the girls over night…if you wanted. I didn't say anything."

Turning on her heels toward the open suitcase next to the bed she mutters, "You're too good to me." And then when she reaches her destination and begins rifling through skirts and shirts she whispers to herself, "…and I don't deserve it."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Today is not his day. Mark has tried, in vain, to get her to talk about anything and the only thing she is willing to do as she nibbles and pushes her lunch around the plate is stare back at him blankly. He wants to ask if she is ok, like it is a reasonable question but he knows the answer. The suffering, in all honesty, is killing him. His parents are ignorant sons of bitches who will probably out live him and when he turned six he learned that he was an accident and there would be no siblings. Aside from Derek's dad's death he really has nothing to go with on this. And male grieving is a little different than female. He gives into the silence munching away on his pastrami and waits for her to speak as she watches people out the window.

"It seems so weird." She finally notes letting her fork clatter onto the plate in front of her.

Deciding against taking her hand he tries to follow her gaze before asking the inevitable question. "What is so weird?"

"The world does not stop."

Eyeing her curiously he waits for her to finish, prays that she finishes really because the logic behind that sentence is far lost on him. They don't do a lot of in depth talking, even that horrid two months in New York was more spent with him on top of her or vice versa and talking was limited to muffled cries and low moans. Carefully choosing his words he settles upon. "True." She doesn't finish the thought just pops a chip into her mouth and turns her head away from the window. "Thank you for eating." He stops after saying it. It sounds so odd to thank someone for something like that but with her it is a step up.

She's not really sure what he is expecting of her but takes the thanks without response. It's so easy to fall into the silence when you don't have to pretend to be fine. It's so easy to look morose and depressed when there aren't children to keep appearances up for. She hasn't smiled once today and with any luck won't be pressured into doing so. He's doing it enough for both of them.

**_-----_**

"Addison!" Callie shouts to their backs as they progress down the hallway after lunch. She turns, expressionless, and waits for her friend to catch up. "How are you feeling? I promised Bailey I would ask and report back."

"I'm fine." She talks in a low tone; daring herself not to be afraid of her own inflection.

"Torres, we really need to get going." Mark states looping his arm around Addison's back and giving a quick smile. Seconds later he is being tugged back. He spins around angrily before he sees who it is. "Kathleen!"

"Hello Markey." She offers with a sly grin.

"Mom sent you?" He asks watching Addison continue down the hall alone. He knows that sometimes family or ex-family can be too much to handle.

"Yeah, Nancy went last time, Laura is busy with work and Elizabeth couldn't tear herself away from her nine hundred kids…so I got shafted. Is he okay? They wouldn't say anything and you know Derek."

"He'll be fine." Mark assures her pulling back from their hug. Even through all the discrepancies and family turmoil he remains close. Gotta stick with what you have.

"And her? We heard about Reagan, is she…-"

"She has bad days, horrible days and then days where she pretends she is fine." Mark explains at least from what he understands.

"I heard she has her nieces?"

"Yeah. Well we have them but they are at the zoo. Our co-workers decided she needed some down time. So far she's slept half the day and said something disturbing about the world never stopping. She looks so empty. I've got to be out of my mind for this." It finally feels good to talk to someone who knows them both equally.

"Maybe I could talk to her."

"She doesn't want to be shrinked. We tried."

"Have some faith; I wouldn't set it up like therapy. I'll just talk to her." She shakes her head and watches as Addison enters the room at the end of the hall. "We should catch up before they kill each other."

"Oh, wait Kath. There's one more thing."

"What? We don't have a lot of time here. She could choke him with an IV cord or something."

"She's pregnant."

"You are such a dog Mark Sloan, you haven't changed one bit. Can't you keep it in your pants for ten seconds? God."

"It's…they're Derek's." He explains shaking his head at the thought. He only wishes they were his. That would make at least one thing easier.

"Shit…wait they?"

He nods and takes a deep breath. "Twins."

"But you are with her now and then there is the other two?" She asks ducking out of the way of a moving cart whizzing by them.

"Yup."

"What a mess." They head down the hall without other words except Mark giving the run down of Derek's injuries so Kathleen won't be surprised when she sees him.

**_-----_**

"You having fun?" Naomi asks as Ellie clings to her hand while they view the monkeys. The day, thus far, has been without incident and even the infant has been relatively calm given the noise and bustle of the zoo. She watches as the girl gives a nod and watches with wide eyes as the monkeys swing in between branches and squeal at each other. "How about some lunch?" She asks again after a few more minutes of the orangutan routine. Noticing the over tiredness of the younger sibling and the muffled cries coming from a few yards away where Cooper is trying, in vain, to make the hordes of people stop staring have tipped her off that now may be a good time to take a break.

"Ok." She agrees walking away towards the rest of the group. Some time later they assemble themselves on a picnic table near the safari exhibits with a random collection of food from various places. "So Elianna, what's your favorite part so far?" Sam asks trying to engage some form of acceptable conversation while Naomi is busy walking the trails with Kennedy in an attempt to calm her.

"I like the monkeys and the tigers and the giraffes and the elephants and the hippos." She states with a sudden burst of life that they haven't seen all day. Violet starts laughing at the end of the table and before stopping to think she is flinging a fry in Cooper's general direction. Pete shuffles a few inches closer to Elianna and asks, "So think you are having fun without Aunt Addie?"

She nods and grows quiet again watching the two at the end of the table continue on with their food fight. Fries lead to chips which lead to Cooper tackling Violet from the table and relentlessly attacking her until she screams and kicks back. Pete and Sam turn their heads the other way and pretend to not be involved with the kind of people who can be just fine with a full on tickle war in a public zoo. Meekly she turns to Pete and asks if they can go home now and he offers assuring words of returning her and her sister to their Aunt within the next few hours. Shaking her head and harshly dropping her juice box and asserts with more of an adamant voice that she would like to go home now.

"Sam?" Pete asks looking for some sort of guidance.

"Ellie, you don't want to hang out and see the tapirs and bears and…" He drags off looking through the map to see how far they haven't gotten yet, "… and the wallabies?"

"I want to go home!" She shouts back grabbing the attention of several pedestrians.

"Violet, Cooper." Sam states looking away for help before she goes full blown temper tantrum on him. He never dealt well with Maya's outbursts and demanding requests.

Violet immediately grabs her shoe lying in the grass and takes her seat again trying to stifle the laughter. "You want to go home or you want to go back to your Aunt?"

"Home." She states insistently like it should be obvious what she is talking about. "I want my daddy."

"Oh-" Pete grimaces before shutting himself up.

**_-----_**

Before Kathleen and Mark tumbled into the room the only thing that got accomplished was Derek restating his love for Addison and her turning away. Now as they flip through his chart together and he tells his sister to inform their mother that nothing is wrong and there is no need for her to fly out the only thing Addison can think of is darting from the room and finding a bed to curl into. She won't, given the situation, let herself leave the room until she gets to speak with him alone so she turns to Mark who is seated next to her with his hand on her knee and asks if they could have a few minutes. He looks to Kathleen and tilts his head to the door before kissing her forehead and assuring her that he will be right there if she needs him. Narrowing her eyes she stares back at the man in the bed.

"We need to talk." She states plainly, shifting more comfortably in her seat as the nausea makes her want to hunch over and cling to her legs.

"I've been doing all the talking Addison. Why don't you tell me something? Have you given any thought to what I said when I came down and visited?"

She shakes her head no and honestly she hasn't had the time to sort through the mixed emotions and broken promises long enough to come to any real conclusion. "Not so much. Derek, I need you to stop though. Stop saying you love me and want to have a life with me. We had a life together and it didn't exactly turn out great…so just stop with the declarations."

He pauses watching her tired expression. "I'm saying what I mean. I've spent too long keeping things bottled up. You know what I saw before my car slammed into the one in front of me?" She shakes her head again knowing full well that he's going to tell her. "I saw you. I saw you and our child out in a park with…Mark and I just was watching from behind a tree somewhere, that's not right Addison. This is my kid. I don't want him raising it."

"I'm not asking you to watch from behind a tree. I want you in their lives. I want them to know who their father is and…well; Mark's not your call. That's mine." She explains quietly looking back at the door.

"Them?" He asks with a confused expression rubbing the bandage on his head.

"Yes them, twins. Which is just great…just fanfreakingtastic…"

"Two of them."

"Yes, two screaming mouths well four if you count the other two I am never likely to get rid of. Four sets of tears and four sets of eyes that Mark wants to help with. I don't see you stepping up."

"That's awfully giving of him." He remarks trying to wrap his head around the notion.

"It is and I don't want to screw that up anymore, I'm tired of screwing up Derek and I'm running out of chances with him, with everything…I'm just done. With us, I'm not going to try again for you on something that will possibly end worse than before. I'm not willing to walk around with a fake smile for the sake of our children, I'm tired of living lies…hell, and I'm tired of living right now."

He watches as her expression crumbles and she fights valiantly to keep the emotions in check. She throws her hands into the air and then wipes at her cheeks to make sure nothing escaped onto her face and then sits back in the chair crossing her legs. "I'm sorry that you're going through this alone. I want to help you Addison, you deserve help. You deserve someone who knows what they are doing and that isn't Mark. It's wrong of me to ask you to stay up here, I know that but you're having our kids…not his and if you want me to be a part of their lives they need to be conveniently located. I don't want to miss any steps of this because you know how long I've waited to have children with you."

"I can't stay here. I won't stay here." She intervenes.

"You want to stay in California with all the reminders of your dead sister?" He asks earnestly.

"Don't talk about her. You don't…you don't know what you're talking about. So stop, just stop with the crazy ideas Derek." She lets out a little laugh to save face and remarks, "Whatever drugs you're on must be amazing. I should talk to Richard."

"I know what I'm talking about. You know I know what you're feeling. Maybe it's not exactly the same but I have a better inclination than anyone else around you. I told you that you need to do what makes you happy to get through this and can you honestly look at me and tell me anything you've done in the last two months has made you happy? She wouldn't want you moping around, she wouldn't want her children as after thoughts in your life-"

"You didn't know her!" She shouts back half of her not believing that this whole scenario is even happening.

"And neither did you and that's not your fault. Stop taking the blame."

"I'm not blaming anyone."

"Oh, please Addison. I may have been pretty dense through out the latter years of our marriage but I know you and I know what your head is doing. So stop, stop for our children before you kill yourself; before you kill them."

Without another word she gets up and stalks out of the room letting the door fall hard against its frame on the way out. She strides past both Mark and Kathleen in the hallway before passing Callie who is trailing behind a group of what can only be assumed as the new interns and finally turns down the next hall to come face to face with the OR Board.

"Which one do you want?" Mark asks turning to Kathleen seconds after Addison's retreating figure rounds a corner.

"I'll take Addison. Be gentle Mark, he just had surgery. No point in sending him back into another one."

He gives her a quick wink and a smile for understanding before remarking. "I'll do my best."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

She knows someone is going to come after her and really the hallway is not the time or place for a showdown especially after she promised to keep things low key yesterday so she patiently waits scanning the board and trying to shove memories out of her mind. Memories of walking these very halls in heels and a presence that demanded attention and applause for her skill not pity. She's so sick of the pity. Her eyes fall upon a C-section in OR 3 and she waits until Kathleen's long brown hair is in viewing distance before heading for the gallery and praying for an audience. It's a routine procedure but given her experience you never know.

She winds through the halls and finally comes to a rest in the second row of an empty gallery. Twenty seconds later Kathleen is beside her. Neither one speaks for a full minute before the older woman remarks, "God, how do you all watch this stuff? It's disgusting."

"I used to do that. I used to be that person. That was my life." Addison remarks watching the surgeon work tediously and the father stroke the cap clad head of the mother.

"Now what person are you?"

"Don't do that. Don't psychoanalyze me. I'm just saying. I used to do that. That's all." She hasn't watched a surgery since her sister's death. She's only delivered four babies in the last two months and none of them were complicated or worthy of her multiple talents.

"You miss it." She states, not as a question but as something she in noticing in her longing voice.

"I really do."

"What's stopping you then?" Kathleen asks trying to keep her eyes off the mess of blood below. She has no idea what anyone can find so fascinating about a new life being ushered into the world and she has her own kids.

"Life."

"Life is shit." She acknowledges and waits for a reply.

"No kidding."

"Wanna talk about it?" She asks turning to the red-headed woman next her. Someone who she clearly regarded highly and as one of the strongest people she had ever met. Addison tends to give off that aura, of self importance; of class and dignity and it's almost below her to ask for help. She was raised thinking it but through out the years a kinship was formed among the Shepherd clan and their only sister-in-law. She wants to be able to help regardless of legal technicalities.

"No."

**_-----_**

"What did you do?" Mark asks growling and stomping back into the room.

"I didn't do anything. We were talking; she was done so she left. Concern yourself with yourself Mark. It's none of your business."

"You know I promised Kath that I wouldn't come in here and beat the shit out of you but you just keeping making it harder and harder on me. I'll ask again, what did you do?" He stalks over to the bed and waits for the answer. Hitting him, would in reality, feel pretty good but it's not in order here.

"She told me about the twins. I asked her to move back up here so I could be around more."

"Well that's self righteous, even for you. Ever consider moving to California? Why should we have to be the ones to pack it all up and come chasing you down again. We already did it once-"

"She did it once and you tagged along unwanted. I'm not discussing it with you Mark. It's not your problem."

He huffs and sits down crossing his arms in an attempt to keep them from striking the man that once was his brother. As soon as he woke up the guilt disappeared from Mark's conscious and he was more than willing to let him be but not if he's going to hurt Addison along the way. "If it concerns her, it concerns me now. We're together and I couldn't care less if you don't like it. We made our choice, fuck you practically shoved me into L.A. Deal with it."

"That was before my children were involved. You don't deserve her. You're just going to hop into bed with some nurse when it gets rough again and then send her packing." Derek remarks maliciously.

"Let's get this straight- you care because of your kids and not actually because of her? Class act, Derek. And you know what? It's been the roughest it's ever been lately and I think I am doing a pretty damn good job but thanks for weighing in." He stands and grabs his chart off the end of the bed. "You should get some rest."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"You regret it?" Kathleen asks after a few more minutes.

Addison turns and places her elbow on her crossed knee, letting the weight of her face fall onto her hand. "Regretting things in life won't get you anywhere."

"So no?"

"How many ways do I have to ask you to stop with the shrink crap? I'm not happy; wanna write a book about it? Have you run out of case studies or something? I hate my life and I'm a screw up, there's one hell of a title. Bet that hasn't been done before." She hesitates briefly at the outburst and then adds, "Sorry."

"I'm trying to be your friend. You used to talk to me all the time before- oh, and there it is. Before Derek. You can still talk to me. Papers don't erase families."

Cocking her head to the side she looks over again. "Yes, they do and I've signed enough of them to know that. They make families, I've signed those too. I don't need the pity so stop, just stop looking at me like you're waiting for the glass to fall to the ground and shatter. They erase families, I'm not crazy. It's a fact of life."

"In theory Addie they do those things. But those are formalities. You're still family….I mean you're housing some important cargo."

"He told you." She whispers standing up.

"He thought it was important enough to mention, yes. Where are you going?"

"To find Mark before he comes looking for me all worried."

"You can still talk to me, if you want. The offer always stands." She calls after her hearing a muted thanks as the clicks on the tile announce her departure.

**_-----_**

Catching sight of the flaming hair against the soft blue fabric of her shirt he sets off to catch up. Sliding into the elevator as the doors begin to squeak close he finds her alone. Silently he moves in closer and places his forehead to hers looking her square in the eyes. "You okay?"

"Fine. I want to leave; I'm done with the hospital for today."

"Me too." They watch the numbers illuminate while they descend and he gradually finds the courage from within to ask, "Did he say anything that upset you? I'll go right back up there."

"Whoa there tiger, it's Derek. He always upsets me and no, there's no reason to get all Rambo on him."

"I don't need reasons, all I need is that look in your eyes." He states before pressing a kiss to her temple and waiting for the doors to open again. "Has Naomi called yet?"

"No." She replies before looking to her watch and catching the time. He hastily intertwines his fingers through hers and they make their way back to the car almost as if he is dragging her from the very spot she desired to leave.

**_-----_**

Nearly an hour car ride later they arrive back at the hotel, thanks in part to Mark's bad directional skills and a major freeway accident. He waits in the "kitchen" while she toes out of her heels and skirt before pulling on his boxers from earlier in the day. Clothes kicked away she throws one of his undershirts overhead and climbs back into bed without inviting him. He watches from his place in the doorway as she sinks her head down and stares off into space before approaching the bed and asking, "You want me to lay with you?" and getting no reply.

Sighing and letting it go with the assurance that tomorrow will be a better day he kicks off his shoes letting them land against he plush carpet with a soft thud. Instead of crawling in after her he reaches under the covers for her feet going completely unnoticed. Pulling the crossed limbs from the blankets he quietly begins to stroke her left foot before pushing his thumbs into it and dragging his fingers along to her toes. After alternating feet twice and nearly twenty minutes later he gives up and lets her have her legs back. He switches tactics by pulling a move his mother used to when he was in trouble and trying to appropriate the blame somewhere else. Crouching near eye level he waits for her to say something and when nothing comes he hangs his head staring at the floor and rolls back on his heels until he is sitting flat on the ground with his feet under the bed. "Say something, please."

She lets her eyes dart back and forth across his face trying to think of the things he wants to hear out of her mouth. Things like she still loves him and thanks him for sticking around, things like she's terrified of herself all of the time now and wants to be a better sharer, things like she wishes she was happy to finally be carrying children and while the thoughts flash in a dizzying dance in her head all she can come up with is stillness. He closes his eyelids and takes a deep breath leaning back against the wall adjacent to the bed. "Addie, I know it's a bad day…a really bad day but you have to talk to make this work."

There are no words in her head. No voice in her raw throat. No tears in her eyes and no pressure in her chest; simply nothing and the numbness is perhaps the most frightening thing about the whole situation. She can't find the phrase to say that everyday when she wakes up that day becomes the worst of her life, to someone who has been trying so hard to make sure she has good days. She can't string together a sentence that won't be offensive and scare the living hell out of him with her deep revealing thoughts so she flips to her other side hoping he'll give up. They only have a limited amount of time before the girls come back and she would prefer to spend her dark minutes in silence reflecting on everything she isn't anymore and how she would gladly go back to the emotionally starved marriage if it meant that her only sibling was still living. She lets her eyes fall closed thinking of all the things she would give to be able to remember what her sister's voice sounds like or what the last thing she said to her was because she can't recall any of it. The memories are fading.

**_-----_**

"Almost home kiddo." Sam says pushing the elevator button up with Elianna, Naomi, Violet and Kennedy. Pete and Cooper claimed to be exhausted and headed to the sports bar across the street with quiet bets on who could pick up the most women.

Naomi looks to her left at Violet who has become rather taken with the red headed infant sleeping in her arms. "You still hate kids?"

"Yes…not this one though, she's kind of cute in a screaming, intolerable kind of way."

"Uh-huh." Sam mutters under his breath. "So she really agreed to see you?" He asks when the doors ding open.

"She agreed to talk about…" She drags on pointing to Ellie who is about thirty feet ahead in the hallway, "…not anything else. But something is better than nothing. It's a start."

"Don't push her." Naomi warns knocking on the suite door and calling for Ellie to come back.

"I won't, I got this." Violet says confidently when Mark pulls back the door rolling his eyes and motioning his head toward the bed before stepping into the hallway.

"She told me to say that she doesn't feel well and doesn't want to talk to anyone." He states reluctantly taking the infant and placing her against his chest when she begins to fuss.

"Oh." Violet remarks, "Well, ok. Just tell her that I will be in town until tomorrow. My flight leaves at five and if she wants to…well I'm here and I would like to see her, at least to say goodbye."

"I'll pass that along." He waits a second while Sam and Naomi try to reel in Elianna down the hallway before turning to Violet. "She's been really quiet all day, like eerily quiet. I mean this is Addison. She is usually talking my ear off about things I never even wanted to know, for instance thanks to her I bet I could do a c-section with my eyes closed. That's how many times I've been given a play by play of cutting uteruses. She likes to talk and she won't. It's creeping me out." He finishes the last bit in a question format hoping for an answer.

"It's not unusual Mark. She was left, essentially alone. Be thankful that she is comfortable enough around you that she won't pretend all the time. That's a good thing." Violet explains.

"It does not feel like a good thing. She said something about the world not stopping. I don't understand her when she does talk. I thought we were getting better and now…after today, I don't know. It's like we took twenty steps back." He states shuffling his feet against the wooden hallway.

Giving him a quick pat on the shoulder Violet remarks, "She's making progress. It may not feel like it but she is. Hopefully, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Ready?" She looks to Naomi not wanting to discuss anything further. She has more than enough to go off right now and all she really needs is to talk to Addison.

"Yup." Naomi agrees giving Mark a much needed hug and Ellie a pat on the head. Sam offers a handshake and a quick twirl in the air for the child before they say their goodbyes and huddle into the elevator again, leaving Mark with two children and the lump in the bed.

**_-----_**

Hours later after explaining three times that Aunt Addison doesn't feel good in her tummy and needs to sleep it off Mark finally gets Ellie settled into bed after a makeshift dinner from room service. Pulling the covers up over her chest he looks to the book on the table beside her. Normally, she puts herself to bed, at least in his experience and he has no idea what comes after this. Sighing he takes a seat at the end of the bed careful not to sit on her feet. "You have fun today?"

"You've asked that four times Mark." She declares reaching for the book next to her.

"Right." Mentally he tries to count and comes up with five and figures that he is annoying her.

"I liked the elephants. Cooper said they were his favorite but I think they are mine too."

He gives a quick smile, relaxing ever so slightly. "Elephants are pretty cool."

She waits a full minute before deciding to chance it because it's Mark and he's good for peanut butter and honey sandwiches and playing airplane with and on occasion a good hug on a bad day. "Where's daddy?"

He's not one to lie to kids. Usually his bluntness gets him in trouble but he doesn't see the need to deceive to her. "We don't know. He told us to take really good care of you and your sister while he was gone though."

"Is he gone with mommy?"

He shakes his head a little. "I don't think so."

"Mommy is not coming back?" She asks shifting against the blankets hoping for a real answer for once.

"No." He states and immediately feels a little guilty for the gruffness with which the answer came.

"Is daddy coming back?"

"He said he was." He leans his elbows back against the bed, feeling his weight shift and looks back up to her as she crawls from her place and into his lap before wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her head into his chest. Hesitantly, he reaches a hand around and lightly strokes her back remembering that this is what Addison does when she gets upset. He senses the warm tears against his skin and suddenly feels enough anger rising within him to go find and beat the crap out of Pierce for everything he has done to his daughter. "He'll come back. He will." He assures her when she calms.

"You're not supposed to lie." Ellie recites looking back at him.

"Well, it's a good thing that I'm not then, huh?" She nods and gives him a little smile before scurrying back to her place beneath the covers.

"Mark, how come people can be in the ground and be angels that fly? It doesn't make sense."

'Sure as hell doesn't,' he thinks to himself cursing everyone he can think of for being put in this position. He is not exactly the world's greatest person with words. "Well people get put in the ground they become angels."

"Well, if mommy is an angel then why do we have to go to that one place to talk to her?"

Convinced she is far too inquisitive and curious for her age about things she shouldn't even have to know about yet he tries his best to explain, "Sometimes people like to go there because that's the last place they saw the person. They go there to talk because angels will come back when someone visits them." He grimaces at the lack of congruity in his speech and hopes she'll take it without another question.

"Ok."

"Ok. Is that it?" He stands again preparing for departure and silently hoping that the infant will start screaming so he can dash from the room.

"One more?"

"Sure."

"Addie does not want me."

He's confused because it's supposed to be a question and it's more of a statement that he can neither verify nor deny. She's definitely onto something and Addison is not doing nearly good enough of a job at pretending if Ellie can sense the disdain of being forced into someone's life. "Aunt Addie is having a hard time."

"Like daddy?"

"Yes. She does want you she just…she's having a rough go of things."

"You want me?" She asks earnestly in the face of being left alone in the world without anyone to care for her.

He shocks himself by actually being able to answer that question without faltering. "You are the coolest kid I have ever met. I would be lucky to have you." She's only the third or so kid he's met outside of Derek's nieces and nephews but that's not really the point. "Alright, bed time for you."

"Can I read?" She asks holding up the book from that morning.

"Umm…sure. Not too late."

"Thank you."

"Anytime." He walks to the doorway before throwing in, "You can ask me anything you want. Aunt Addie may not want to talk about your mother but I will. Ask me whenever you want, ok?" She nods and turns her attention to the dog eared page eager to get back to the make believe world of farm animals after her day at the zoo.

**_-----_**

Perched behind a pair of dark sunglasses, with half of her hair swept back she swirls the juice against its plastic container and waits impatiently for Violet. After an uneventful night she decided that she had to do something even if it was just for Ellie. Things needed to change. "Hey." Violet calls shaking the water out of her hair and making her way to the table. "I'm glad you called." Addison gives a grin and suggests that she grab some coffee before the line gets too long.

Watching the people from the window she doesn't notice when the psychiatrist takes her seat again. "It never stops moving." Violet adds cautiously and waits for her co-worker to turn back around.

"No it doesn't." She takes a second and collects her thoughts before divulging, if only in the name of the small children she is watching. Or that's what she tells herself to ease her mind. "It doesn't stop and I'm stuck not moving."

"It does feel like that sometimes. It gets better." Violet admits trying to take her lead and let her control the tempo of the conversation.

Biting her lip Addison lets her eyes fall to the table before acknowledging. "I think I'm in way over my head."

"Why do you think that?" Violet asks in her best non-therapist voice.

Instead of answering she changes the subject with a smile and a nod. "Let's talk about Ellie."

**_-----_**

* * *


	25. These words consume her

A/N: So insert some really great excuse here as to why this hasn't been updated. Go for it, be creative. Aside from that, the obligatory thanks all around to everyone who keeps this story trucking and to the beta, I've got nothing. Enjoy!****

**_-----_**  
**_She waits all day _**  
**_She stands a stranger in her skin _**  
**_She moves the science with her hands _**  
**_She lines her walls _**  
**_With every paper she can see _**  
**_These words consume her _**  
**_But they never set her free _**  
**_And then she looked at me to scream _**  
**_"My castles are falling" _**  
**_But I can't look into the street _**  
**_Without everything changing _**  
**_I want to read good news _**  
**_I want to be innocent again _**  
**_I want to read good news _**  
**_But nothing good is happening_**  
_-Something Corporate, "Good News"_  
**_-----_**

He's waiting. He's giving her time but it feels like all he is ever doing is giving Addison time. Time to heal from her marriage, time to feel better, just time and then some more time on top of that. It's exhausting to be the only one holding her up and to be the only one who understands that that is perfectly ok for the time being. What's more tiring is her conserving all of her effort to fight against him and prove to the world that she doesn't need help. He thinks maybe it's inadvertent; maybe it's just her nature to go it alone. But the exception to that rule was Derek so he spends most of his time wondering just why in god's name he isn't enough to be an exemption.

He's more than Derek really, if you examine the matter at hand carefully enough but he's cursed with the whole wrong time thing. Maybe in another lifetime sort of deal, where situations never line up quite right but just enough that they leave him more fucked up than before. He's got the nurturing thing down; he knows the way to hold her when she wants to cry or when she just needs a hug he can tell from a single frown. He knows how she takes her coffee (or he supposes how she used to take her coffee), that she hates eating breakfast but she'll do it because she's a doctor and one can only be hypocritical about so many things in life, that she actually prefers those damn skirts and heels over jeans but not over a pair of old comfy boxers (preferably his) and he knows that she actually likes baseball and only pretends to bitch and not understand the rules because that's what girls do.

He's good at doing so many things for her. Good at making her come, making her scream and writher (not that he's had a chance lately to remind her but nonetheless), making her laugh and smile after a particularly rough surgery (not that she does that anymore either but regardless) and he's good at lifting her spirits when the world is crashing down (not that she's letting him anymore but nevertheless). But he can't figure out why he's not good with her. Why he isn't good enough for her. Does every single person she loves have to treat her like crap in order for the game to work? Why can't they simply be the best couple he has ever envisioned? The highly functional duo who can take on the world with or without kids but he supposes that the hang up is her; them. For every one thing he has down pat about her she has no clue about him. He meant it when he said that it was her turn to fight but how do you make someone who is drowning fight for something that may very well only hold their head under the water for longer? How do you get that trust from someone who would prefer to live in bed everyday and wither away to nothing? How does he get her to care without yelling in her face?

Time is frustrating.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"I hate talking!" Ellie screams as Mark pulls her half knotted shoelace from her hand and begins to sort out the ties.

"Clearly." He mocks and then looks up to see her eyes brimming with tears. Score one for Mark.

"Elianna, this is not a choice. Mark are you ready yet?" Addison asks tip toeing from the pseudo kitchen with one happily fed and dressed infant in hand.

"Almost." He nearly rips apart the shoelaces before tossing them to the corner and demanding that she find a different pair of shoes, ones that she could snap or Velcro or glue on. Not even his highly talented surgeon's hands care to master the finer points of tightly wound knots.

"Violet said she could only stay until 3 so if we want-"

"Addison, I heard you. Do you think that is making her move any faster?"

"Right. Sorry."

She's too quick to apologize these days he notices. Too hasty to assume it's all her fault and scoop up the blame, not that a life well spent hasn't taught her the logistics of shoving it all deeper anyway. "Stop apologizing." He snaps and then sighs heavily.

He was hoping when she agreed to see Violet yesterday something productive would have come about but instead all they got was another meeting with Violet today and none of it was about Addison. She returned the day before from her coffee date morose and more withdrawn than before citing she needed sleep and then promptly crawled into bed to dream, or in what he has seen, stare away her issues. They haven't talked, haven't discussed a damn thing and now need to be in twenty nine places at once. It wears thin, walking around in her shoes, it gets old after about an hour and he can't imagine how she did it all those years.

"Right." She nods quietly and begins to busy herself with all things baby until Ellie emerges from the room with a brush hanging from her mangled hair and one shoe on and another in hand.

"I don't wanna go!" She screams stomping her feet in every direction they will go and using words far too simple for her elaborate vocabulary.

"What part of 'not a choice' did you not understand?" Mark asks removing the brush from her hair and setting her down on the bed.

"I hate her. She's stupid and I hate her!" She yells picking up intensity and volume with every syllable.

"Why is she stupid?"

"She makes me talk. I don't want to talk. I want to read and color and play. I don't want to talk!" She shouts into Mark's unshaven face nearly causing him to lose all patience as Addison drifts from the room afraid of a conflict she can't handle.

"Alright kid, here's the thing. You have to go."

"I said-"

"I heard you." He shakes his head. "Believe me, I heard you. So we're going to go and you can talk or not talk. That's your call, ok?' She bounces her head a little unsure. "We had a good talk a few days ago, remember?" She nods again. "If you have questions-"

"I don't." She counters immediately growing defensive.

"Ok, well. We'll go and you talk about whatever you want or don't want. Talk about kangaroos or whatever book you were reading-"

"Charlotte's Web." She beams with a smile.

Mark's pretty sure that once upon a time he had to read that book, something about a pig but it is all lost now. That space in his brain now reserved for useless information like blonde Samantha's phone number in New York, the one from the café on 5th. Useless. "Alright, Charlotte's Web. You tell her all about that." He says with a smirk knowing full well that that would be one hell of a session to sit in on.

"Can we name the baby Charlotte? Or Wilbur?" Inspired, she begins pulling the other shoe on and grabbing the brush back from Mark because he pulls too hard as she's learned.

"Your sister's name is Kennedy, kiddo. Sorry, she's got a name. We can't change it."

"Not Kendy." She replies crinkling her nose and using the nickname she much prefers to the full deal. If he had to admit it the kid got stuck with a shitty name that she is going to spend half of her time explaining because of a ridiculous family tradition. He can only wait and see what Addison had up her sleeve when the time comes. "The other baby Mark." She states with an eye roll far surpassed her years.

"Oh-" And then his stomach drops because for all of the worrying he's managed in the last day or so he actually forgot about the pregnancy. Aside from her morning sickness, refusal to eat anything and general complaints he somehow displaced that thought for another time. "You ask Aunt Addie alright?"

"Ask me what?"

"Can we name the baby Charlotte or Wilbur?"

Addison raises her brow confused and looks to Mark for help. "We could name one Charlotte and the other Wilbur, there's two babies in there, remember?" He explains and she nods and Addison's face drops like he just reminded her about the worst day of her life. Honestly, he's trying to be helpful. Trying to distract and reroute the enthusiasm so the little red head on the bed with a temper to match the tall red head standing next to him can continue to smile for just a second longer.

"Actually you can't." She answers with a stiffened jaw and unapologetic eyes.

"Addison." He warns before her face softens and she starts to explain the reason, "Mark, they are identical so they are either both boys or both girls. One or the other would suffice but not both."

"Identical." He replies and gulps in air until he chokes.

"I told you mono/di. Same placenta, different sacks. You don't listen."

"For the record I was preoccupied with everything and in a little bit of shock so okay, noted. They're identical." And he pauses, not for dramatic effect because even she can see the wheels turning as Ellie looks on from the bed with a perplexed look. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes." She demands more adamantly. If denying the fact that it was true was going to get her anywhere she would have been doing it since day one.

"Ok, then. You ready Elianna?" She looks from one adult to the other trying to decide what happened and then reaches out for Mark's hand. Being a big kid aside there is a certain comforting and calming effect he has and it is not unnoticed by the smaller beings in the room, only the larger one.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

She follows along behind them. Slowly lagging in their unnoticed footsteps Addison trudges to the designated meeting area. A well used bench in a park her eyes have never beheld before this moment. Violet wanted something with a couch but it was rejected immediately. If this was to be done she wanted it on her terms. She didn't want Ellie to feel trapped or punished. If she wanted to go swing then they would go swing, it was that simple. The meeting yesterday made it perfectly clear that she needed to start spending quality time with the five year old. Needed to put forth more of an effort. She had no idea where to start, where to find that kind of energy. As they edge closer toward the curly haired woman who had a black umbrella leaning up against her leg (just in case) Addison's breath catches in her throat. If she had a dollar for every time she was whisked away to therapy. Granted, she went voluntarily during her marriage to Derek but that was completely beside the point.

"Do I have to?" Elianna asks with a most serious look when they come to a hasty halt ten feet from the therapist.

"You really do." Mark affirms and looks back to Addison who has just joined them.

"I can sit with you, if you want or you could go play after." She throws down trying to make it more comfortable.

"Addison, I don't think you should be sitting in on her therapy session." He is in a similar boat but instead he was always the one seeking out the help. He went willingly and talked out everything he was never ever going to tell anyone else. When he thought one psychiatrist knew too much about him he would simply move on to the next or sleep with them. That usually ended the professional relationship.

"He's right." Violet adds after getting tired of sitting on the hard wood. Of all places, she keeps thinking to herself. How is she supposed to get anything accomplished with screaming children running around distracting both her and her patient?

"I was just-"

"It would be better if you and Mark just hung back a little. If she needs you we know exactly where to find you, ok?" Violet asks with a smile that could reassure a dying man breathing his last breaths. It's a talent.

"Yeah. Ok. Elianna we will be right over there." She points to the grass and then grimaces glancing down at her 800 dollar shoes. Mark holds forth the blanket like he knew exactly what was going to happen and then it all begins.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

Freeing the infant, Addison takes a seat on the blanket and places Kennedy along her long legs. She runs a light finger against her stomach hoping for the laugh Mark got out of her that day but instead is rewarded by a crumbling face. She sighs long enough for him to pick up the infant and place her against his chest to calm her. There was a turning point. He suddenly turned into the guy, who was good with kids, the guy who didn't hate them based on their vocal abilities. He has no idea when it happened but for as much as it frightens him it also excites him. This is what Addison wants; what she has always wanted in a man and he is enthralled by his newest skill. He lets his strong hand support her back as she drifts off to sleep and then attempts to give her back.

"She hates me. Just, keep her. She's better with you anyway." Addison mutters leaning back on her elbows and kicking her shoes off. Gasping she takes in the cool onset of fall air and tries to focus on the two characters in the distance.

"She doesn't hate you. She doesn't hate anyone."

"She hates almost everyone."

"Not anymore." He replies letting Kennedy rest against him a moment longer before pulling her back and demanding that Addison feel her smooth breathing in her own hands.

"Since when?" She asks daringly and relents when he forces the half sedated infant back into her personal space.

"Since Pete realigned her back. She still screams and crap but I think it helped. She sleeps a little more at least and she only woke us up five times last night as opposed to-"

"You let Pete do what?"

"He just said he wanted to show me something that would help. Honest to god, I didn't believe him either but it didn't seem to harm anything so-"

"You don't get to make those calls." She snaps too quickly feeling defensive.

"What?"

"She isn't yours. You don't…anything medical gets run through me. You don't get to make those decisions."

"What calls do I get to make here? When to change a diaper which by the way I completely kick ass at now, when to feed her, when to help you and give you a break in the middle night. I don't know when I turned into the fucking nanny but I thought-"

"Stop." She demands. Her voice is bare and raw, full of emotions begging to be screamed out but she remains calm and composed.

"This is so…so you. Controlling everything. Screw this."

"Walk away." She states a little quieter. Like is a dare, like she is calling his bluff.

"Oh yeah, you would love that. Sorry, we decided. I'll have you remember that we were doing this together, so I'm in. I'm in when you want to treat me like the fucking caregiver and I'm in when you decide to start treating me like a human again and stop using me for my hands." He rolls back a little and lies flat staring at the cloudy sky. It would only be too perfect if they opened up and drenched everything.

"I'm not using you. You're here because you want to be, you just said it. I'm- I don't…I can't fight with you right now. We are here for Ellie."

"It's always something Addison. Always something holding us back." He reminds her all to certain that she has completely forgotten their past.

"I don't want to do this." Her voice drops off at the end, leaving a little dip in his heart but she presses further because this is what she does. This is what they do.

"Fine, how about you don't bother talking to me until you can handle an actual conversation that doesn't include accusing me of being unworthy and undeserving."

She furrows her brow trying not to look over at him. She never mentioned anything about being unworthy and is too tired to dig deeper and see what the problem is. May as well let it infect and fester.

**_-----_**

"So…are you enjoying your time here?" Violet asks trying to break the ice. Child psychology is so not her area of expertise but she figures it can't hurt to at least give it a shot when no one else is willing.

Ellie shifts against the hard wood nearly getting a splinter through the tights of the purple dress she just had to wear today - despite Addison's protests of the looming weather - and listening patiently. She is a little unsure of what everyone wants from her at this point. Aside from the general urgent feel of needing to get home (to nothing) and knowing that everyone is hurting (and no one really cares) she thinks that it may just be best to set aside all the bad and move forward. "It's ok." She answers quietly swinging her legs back and forth as her sandal clad toes brush against the damp green grass.

Violet takes a deep breath and decides to just dive in, head first. "Ellie, I want to talk to you about those pictures. Remember the one you gave Naomi?"

"Yes." She replies picking up speed with her legs and relishing in the feeling of moisture against her chilly skin.

"Why did you draw that?"

"I thought that it would be a nice thing to do. Mommy always loved when I drawed for her. She put them on the wall of her office at work."

"Oh, well what did you used to draw for your mommy?"

She shrugs at first because the long list of colorful objects seems a little pointless to list out but then slows her feet and turns to where she can see her Aunt on the grass. "Aunt Addie is sad."

Clearly having picked up avoidance of important issues from said Aunt, Violet decides to play along. "Yes, she is. Do you know why she is sad?"

"Because mommy is in the ground, daddy is gone, that guy is in the hospital and there are babies in her." She explains her eyes locked on the three people thirty yards in the distance.

"Yeah. All those but guess what?"

"What?" She returns fairly uninterested when her eyes behold the slide and swings.

"She's still got you. She's got you and your sister and Mark, and maybe right now she doesn't realize that…but that's not the point. You make her feel better when she is sad."

She shakes her head at first, then kicks at the loose clump of green beneath her foot and turns to the adult. "You're wrong!"

"I'm not wrong." Violet scoffs and then catches herself and corrects her tone.

"You are wrong. Aunt Addie said she doesn't want us."

"She didn't."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too!"

At the risk of having an actual five year old fight in the middle of the park Violet lowers her voice and asks the more important questions. "When did she say that?"

"I don't know. She said it."

"Ok, she said it. Maybe she was frustrated and tired, adults get tired and they say things they don't mean. People say things they don't mean Ellie. All the time. It's part of the human condition."

"Lies?"

"Yes, lies. Little lies. But if she said that it doesn't mean it's true. She loves you very much, if she didn't- she wouldn't still have you, ok?"

"Sure." She responds dejectedly. "I used to draw rainbows and ponies cause daddy said I could have one soon and fish in the sea like _Nemo_ and the dog I want."

Temporarily confused Violet tilts her head and then quickly connects the dots. "Ok, and what do you draw now?"

"Death."

**_-----_**

"I'm sorry." Addison whispers without removing her eyes from the scene in front of them.

He's still angry, still brewing from having his buttons pushed all damn week but he is exhausted enough to accept victory and hopefully move on. "Good."

"Good?"

"Well don't expect me to apologize, I didn't do anything wrong."

"Neither did I!" She starts and the rolls her neck and lies back facing the cloudy sky. Tugging on the sleeves of her sweater she buries her hands inside the warm fabric. There's something comfortable about the feeling, something she can't place but it helps even if she does look ridiculous half the time. Moments later she feels him next to her, both of them staring straight up hoping that lightening will strike with all of life's answers.

Wordlessly he pries her hand from its death grip and replaces it in his warmth. He doesn't get it and maybe he won't have to have it explained to him. Some things are not worth knowing. "I'm sorry too."

"You shouldn't be."

"Well, I am and there is nothing you can do about it."

"I wish you would stop doing this." She replies taking her hand back and stuffing it into the cave of homey feeling.

"Stop trying to touch my girlfriend?" For clarification purposes her tries to find her eyes and gives up when she refuses to look in his direction.

She takes a deep breath. Takes the time to compartmentalize all the issues and then turns to him with her most serious face on. "I need you to stop treating me like I'm going to fall apart."

"Addison-"

"Hear me out. You told me to think, told me to fight and I have to be honest. Right now, I don't have it in me."

He shifts onto his side and watches as the thought flow off her tongue in another of what he is sure will be a well rehearsed speech. "Ok, what does that mean?"

"It means that I need something to stay normal right now."

"Uh-huh."

"I can't fight for you. Not right now, I can't…I can hardly-"

"Are you saying-"

"I'm not saying anything Mark. I'm trying-"

"Addison. I'm a fairly dense male so if this is a girly freak out, I'm going to need clear words and logical thoughts."

Trying to ward off the tears, which she has been managing wonderfully for the better half of the week, she raises her arms in the arm. "It is logical!" And then they are by her side again, searching more furiously for a good spot to rest. "It is logical to me."

"Well, explain it." He tries again pulling her hand out and grasping it tightly praying to whoever is up there that she isn't trying to end this.

"I can't do this with you."

"Do what?"

She motions wildly with her free hand to the sprawling hills and running children. "All of it. I can't, you won't let me."

"Let you what Addison?" He warns with his voice growing defensive. He sure as hell has been pulling more than his fair share of the weight and bashing will not be tolerated.

"I'm stuck and you're here and nothing is normal and you won't let me, you won't let me!" She shrieks her voice breaking in the end and tears spilling down over her face. As her shoulders begin to shake and her chest heaves in the cool air he sits up and tries to draw her closer. "Don't. Don't touch, stop touching!"

He pulls his hands back when her fists thunk upon his chest and her body puts more space in between them while swiping at her wet face. "You aren't making any sense."

"I'm trying to explain and you can't, don't touch me."

"Alright fine so long as you settle down. I don't want Kennedy to wake up." The last part is a bit of lie because the little ones screams would be far more welcome than the growing public scene that he was convinced would never happen with her.

"Oh yeah, real nice Mark. Use the baby."

"Addison." He growls. "Please finish what you were saying."

"This isn't working."

"Just say it."

"I am!"

"You want…after all of that, you are going to look at me and tell me it isn't working? What you needed the higher moral ground? You needed to be the one who was doing the breaking up? Addison, I-"

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?" He demands jutting his legs straight out in front of him in an effort to remain in place instead of walking away.

"I have to think about my children, Derek's children."

"And what about these other kids? You aren't babysitting Addison; you can't just give them back when we can't even find their father. I'm here and…I'm here and Derek is in a hospital. Derek who walks away from you every chance he gets, Derek who picks up extra shifts so he doesn't have to talk to you, Derek who volunteers to scrub in so he won't have to look at you, Derek! You want-"

Trying not to relive the pain of her marriage and subsequent divorce she lets her fingers picks at the grass bordering the wrinkled blanket. Toying with the stems of kelly green and plucking them thoughtlessly from their home and thereby killing them she exclaims, "I don't want Derek."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want my sister, ok there I said it. I'm hurting, I'll admit it and you don't get to hold it against me, you don't get to throw it in my face that I am doing a horrible job with her children, I know! I'm a failure in every damn dimension of my life but you don't get to say it, you don't." She pauses when the familiar moisture begins to trek down cheekbones and drops onto the plaid before her. "I miss her…I miss her so much and I- it's not supposed to be this hard…for me. It's been too long and I can't…you won't." Trailing off her fingers stops their exploration and she bites down hard on her lip waiting for a response.

It's something so much different to think it twenty-four-seven then to voice it aloud to someone who could use it against you. There's something incredibly vulnerable in the admission that hangs in the air between beating hearts and frustrated minds. His eyes dart and flit over her figure, her posture, her ever present emotions. Tentatively he reaches out to her legs and rubs light circles until she pushes him back.

"Don't touch." She whispers settling back on watching Ellie with Violet.

**_-----_**

There isn't a logical and fulfilling response as to why the small child with fidgeting hands in front of her is trying to draw death out on a piece of paper. There's no sense to make of the situation. All she needs is more talking, discussion, love, she needs to feel wanted and secure so that the little things don't turn into hysterics in an airport and endless supplies of beheaded stick figures covered in red crayon. They talk for a few more minutes; about school as Violet tries to get her adjusted to therapy because there is no way this one isn't going to be a lifer.

They talk about how she wants to go home, how she wants her father, her general disdain (although wavering) for her little sister and the fact that she doesn't really know where she is. That fact alone is scary enough for any five year old, displacement, hell adults don't even do that well with it Violet commends.

When they finish Ellie's legs still swirl but her hands come to a rest in her lap and Violet likes to think that maybe, just maybe she was able to help someone and her job isn't the hoax everyone else makes it out to be. There's a small smile on her face when she tells the girl she can go to her Aunt and then a mouth full of teeth when she tells her that she did a very good job talking. Everyone just needs a little reassurance from time to time. Everyone.  
**_  
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**_-----_**

"So?" Addison questions as they whole group is finally situated and packed up enough to send Mark with Ellie to the swings and Kennedy is slung across Addison's free arm. Still grappling from the emotional effects of her meltdown minutes ago with Mark she sent him away with the assurance that were in no way breaking up, even if that was all she could give him, it was something.

"She needs more therapy."

"That's your professional assessment? An hour later and that's what you've got for me?"

"We talked Addison, she needs to talk more. She said some disturbing things. I'm not a specialist but I do recommend that she start seeing one. At least for a little while." Violet shrugs and snatches her umbrella off the well worn path of caked mud and fallen leaves that have turned an ugly shade of brown in the cool autumn air.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long will she need therapy?" Addison asks her hands finding her hips in a most intimidating way.

"You know better than to ask that." Violet starts and then is fixed with glare that could make a bat wish it was dead. "It takes time. It all depends, you know that. I know you know that so why are you asking?"

"No reason." She states resigning her body to the hard bench that she has been staring at longingly from their spot of the moist grass for what feels like eternity.

"Come on, we share. We're all kinds of close now. You're a little crazy, I'm a little crazy. It's a wonder we aren't best friends." Violet teases and takes her spot again. Her back begins to protest as soon as it touches the wood but she just grins wider and waits.

"It's just…I can't- I can't give her back all broken and in therapy. Pierce, I can't."

"You don't want him to think you have done a horrible job with his kids, that's ok Addison. He knows-"

"No he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything because I can't find him so just, how long Violet?"

"It varies." She pauses tilting her head and following Addison's stare to the playground where Mark is pushing Ellie dangerously high even for her taste. "You're doing a good job."

"Don't flatter me; I know I'm doing an awful job. It's fine, I'm coming to terms. I'm coming to terms with everything."

"Oh really?" Violet asks a little intrigued at how fast her co-worker can switch on and off.

"I'm trying."

"That's all that matters."

They wait a few more minutes and Violet goads herself to say something every time she catches Addison's darkened eyes but she waits. Waits until she is standing again, waits until the goodbyes are imminent and foreclosing. "Ellie said something and I think-"

"Just say it."

"She said that she heard you say you didn't want her anymore and I know...I know people get frustrated and your situation is less than desirable. I think half of us would have been crumpled into a ball in the corner and the other half of us would be borderline suicidal, but it would be beneficial for her to feel loved. She needs to feel secure in her surroundings so she can share and just be a kid again…she doesn't act like a kid very often-"

"I've noticed that." Addison replies and kicks herself for that damn conversation with Mark.

"She fidgets, she didn't used to do it that much." Violet remarks listing off the things she's noted as behavioral changes.

"I know."

"She doesn't-"

"Please stop. Just stop listing off the things I already know ok? I can't, I don't know how to fix any of that so I brought her to you and you tell me she needs more work."

"There isn't some sort of magical potion to fix everything. You can't do anything but give it your best and wait it out." She adds patting her shoulder before Addison steps back and adjusts her shirt with apologies and thanks for all of her help and then she is sent packing with her umbrella in hand as the light drizzle begins to come down and coat everything in a light film of water.  
**_  
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**_-----_**

"I just don't think we should make her go there anymore Addison. She obviously hates the place and they hate us for dragging her from room to room screaming. Let her stay back for once, it's not like she needs to see Derek for anything." Mark argues when they return from the park and begin to change out of the wet, cold clothing that clings to their bodies and dares Mark to drag her by the waist into a hot steaming shower. At least when she is pre/mid/post orgasm she isn't bickering with him. Well, most of the time.

"And who are we going to leave her with? Concierge? You think they'll send up a nanny that they have handy in the back room when occasions like this happen?" She growls before his hand wraps around her wrist and tugs her toward the bathroom. "What are you doing?" She demands pulling away and flinging her sweater behind her when he closes the door, clicking the lock shut.

He's out of ideas. He's out of ways to help so he's just going to give in and do what he always does, do what he does best, do what she wants. He finds her mouth during another jumbled sentence of gripes and loops one hand around her lower back and lets the other one toy with her wet hair. He works slowly tracing his tongue along her bottom lip before she allows him to proceed and then they dance around one another, slowly, melodically much unlike how he thought it would be. They haven't really kissed in weeks. Maybe months.

Stretching around next to her she has just enough reach to turn the faucet on and adjust the temperature as his hands begin to fumble with the button on her pants. He pulls them away painfully slow and trails wet chaste kisses up her chilled shaking legs before letting his hands fiddle with the edge of the white camisole. Pressing kisses to both hips he lets his fingers dip past the lace barrier and is pleased to find she is more than aroused.

She moans as his fingers slide along her, teasing at her entrance before he sets them to work in a lazy twisting pattern that makes her knees buckle within a few short minutes. Steadying her with one hand the other helps her get free from the white shirt and all other articles that get in the way of soapy showers. Standing before him naked for the first time in months and under the harsh florescent lighting she suddenly feels insecure and hesitantly folds her hands in front of her growing stomach. Before she can say anything he captures her attention with another kiss that lets her know that he isn't anything but pleased with what he sees. Feeling him harden under the damp jeans she lowers the zipper, deftly works her way through the maze of his belt and slides it all to the ground waiting for him.

He steps to the side and pulls his shirt overhead following her into the hot water. As soon as he sets both feet onto the warmed wet tile he feels her hand over him beginning to glide back and forth, not that he needs any help; it has been way, way too long without sex. Resting his back against the cascading heat he gives in to the feeling of how they were, of how well this works with them, of how no words are needed. And then he feels her tongue flit over the tip of his erection and almost loses it then and there. Instead he opens his eyes to find her standing again with a small smirk she hasn't worn in weeks.

He's intent to take it as slow as possible. To savor the feeling of her wet skin on his because he has no idea when it will happen again. Reaching around he grips the back of her thighs and pushes her against the tile. Not in need of encouragement from him she wraps her legs around his waist and begins to lift her hips impatiently when he hesitates. He kisses his way up and down her neck and lets his lips trickle along her jugular when he pushes into her and thrusts leisurely, lightly until she tries to set her own pace.

He resides himself to thinking that now isn't the time to drag it out and make her come until she screams because there are small children outside the doors that will probably come knocking at some point and it doesn't appear to be what she desires. He drives into her a little harder because he knows that what she wants is rough sex. Sex that propels her to the point of bliss and lets her topple over gasping, not sex that teases her relentlessly, bringing her to the brink of ecstasy only to shy away from it repeatedly.

She wants scratches, bite marks, and aching legs that will remind her of what she did tomorrow. She wants to feel. Allowing herself to arch back against him she senses his fingers as they find her clit and swirl with intensity until she is breathless and biting down on her lip to keep from moaning too loudly. She feels herself grow close, feels herself tighten around him and with one final thrust they both give in chests heaving, eyes closed giving way to the fireworks display behind the blackness, mouths opened with unspoken words, and limbs shaking in pleasure.

Letting her down gently he removes himself from her moist throbbing skin and reaches for the shampoo intent on actually making this a worthwhile cleansing. They perfect the rest of the shower without speaking and fighting for the water before it turns cold and they are forced back out into the real world.  
**_  
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**_----- _**

Dressed, brushed, prepped and cleansed Addison resumes her fight with Mark about going to the hospital. It isn't a choice anymore, it's an obligation. It's Derek. It was never an option, it was never a competition or whatever Mark feels he is so unworthy about. She doesn't have the patience to try and figure out his inner workings. "Thirty minutes Mark. We'll go in, see Derek and get out." Honestly the thought of being alone with Derek is intimidating and she doesn't want another opportunity for him to force doubts into her head.

"I don't think it's a good idea." He looks over to the small girl who is beaming at some sci-fi show she is too young for and had Addison any presence of mind lately wouldn't allow her to see it.

"I have to go." She states beginning to pace the room.

"Then go."

"Oh, and what? Leave you here alone with them?" She gawks slipping into the heels she had set by the door and reaching for her wool coat that she hasn't needed since she moved from this hell hole.

"I've been alone with them before Addison. It's nothing new. I can handle it and for you to suggest otherwise-"

She gulps back the knot in her throat and lets her fingers dig into the pockets of the coat finding something shaped like chapstick. "I don't…never mind. Fine, you think you can do it, then fine…just don't kill them. I'll be back."

"Ok. We'll be good and when you get back we'll all go get some dinner and order a movie or something. Then after…" He nods toward Ellie giggling at the alien form on the screen, "…that goes to sleep we can talk. We…need to talk." He feels like a broken record, feels like a CD skipping over the same verse. Every time he says it her face falls a little more and tonight is no exception. She lets her eyes trail to the plush carpeting before his feet find a way to her and he clasps his arms around her in what would be a hug provided she was reciprocating. Now it's just borderline sexual harassment.

"Don't touch me." She states pushing back against him and reaching for her purse on the table adjacent to her.

"Now we're back to that? Jesus Christ Addison, where do you get off? I can only touch you when you want to…" He drops his voice for the little ears in the room because so frequently he finds himself forgetting and she never notices anyway. "…come. When you are in need?"

Instead of answering and trying to explain that she can't bear to be touched in any form of a comforting manner because it literally makes her skin crawl she finds her way to the door and lets it slam hard against its frame with the knowledge that Mark shouldn't be trusted to baby-sit.  
**_  
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**_-----_**

"I didn't figure you'd show up today." Derek mocks when Addison sheds her coat and takes a seat next to him.

"I had things to do." She deadpans and turns her attention toward the chart that was abandoned on the side table.

"You can read it if you want to, I made Bailey leave it. I wanted to make sure everything went how they said it went."

Flipping through she notes all of the little things, his medications, the nurse's scribbles and how long the whole procedure took. "Looks good."

"Not bad for a car wreck."

"You aren't on very much medication, aren't you in pain?" She asks wishing he was asleep half the time and groggy the other half.

"Sometimes you have to hurt to know you're alive Addison." He remarks and then attempts to sit up on his own. She moves, instinctively to help and finds her hand on his arm before pulling back hastily.

"I don't feel anything." She admits and then turns away embarrassed from her flare-up. She finds it funny how easily she can be fighting with Derek one day and the next minute be having meaningful conversation. They have that sort of relationship where things jump and fit into place without questioning. Too many years together. She only wishes Mark was that easy.

"It goes away." He remarks watching her face steady in the dim light.

"Should have gone away by now. It's been two months Derek and I…I feel worse than the day it happened."

He knows, he's been there and if that's the reason for the sudden outburst then he isn't going to shrug it off. "The denial is gone."

"I wasn't in denial."

"Figuratively speaking. You let yourself pretend, let yourself get busy with the rest of the world and then one day it catches up with you. Grabs you around the throat and demands that you acknowledge her death. It hurts worse because you are actually coming to terms with it. Moving on…it…there's nothing like losing a family member." He reaches for her hand, silently caressing the soft flesh as her breath audibly hitches and the tears start in again.

"I've made such a mess." She aches out swiping at her face with her free hand and drying the wetness on the fabric of her gray skirt.

"I've made a mess. Look at me." He smiles pointing to his bandaged head and encased leg.

She coughs out a small laugh and reasserts her posture. "I meant of life but yeah…you don't look so good yourself."

"I'm happy, I'm grateful to finally be having children with you." He starts.

"Derek-"

"Let me finish, please. Just shut up for once." He laughs because he can finally say things like that without having the repercussions come back to haunt him.

"I'm happy that we are having children and being laid up in a hospital bed with nothing on and no ability to move lends oneself to a lot of thinking…so I've been thinking. I'm happy it's you. I always wanted children with you and I know I have been trying to get back together with you and I love you, now don't freak out and run away just yet ok?" He asks watching her hands fidget with the cup on the bedside table. "I love you and I will probably love you for the rest of my life and this kid thing? Only gonna make me love you more but if you don't want us together than I guess I have to respect that."

"I would appreciate that." Setting the cup down she runs her fingers over the rim in the reminder that life is an endless cycle, that things come full circle and that they don't always have to make the most sense.

"But if there's even the slightest chance that you do want me, want us…all together you have to promise to tell me."

"I want Mark." She blurts out and then bites down hard on the side of her cheek waiting for a response. It isn't any of his business and he certainly has no claim signing off on either one but she feels like she needs to make the one thing she knows for certain clear.

"Maybe you want Mark right now but Addison- Mark is just Mark, he's not some amazing man who will turn into everything you thought he could be. He's just…not and I, as selfish and hypocritical as it sounds, hate watching you get hurt still."

It wouldn't be logical to say that Mark won't ever hurt her the way he did, because he very well may and it wouldn't be her place to say that Mark is a better man than he will ever be because it's not true. When Derek was a good husband he was an amazing man and she will not ever deny that. But in the same turn she can't deny that he racked up more emotional turmoil in her world then any other ten people combined have been able to manage. She doesn't know who she is with him anymore; she doesn't know where she stands. When she sees Derek all she feels is sin, guilt and completely lost and that's not going away anytime soon. "I want Mark."

"Ok." He pauses shifting every so slightly and grimacing in the process. "I want you to stay. Even is we aren't together, even if we have to evolve and morph into the poster children for divorced couples with children."

"Naomi and Sam have that title." She smiles.

"Well, we'll steal it then, alright? I know you love a stiff competition."

"Ok."

"So you'll stay?"

**_-----_**

* * *


	26. We light up our hands & watch them burn

A/N: Hello! and a big sorry for taking so damn long with this. I'm struggling to keep this beast up. I realize how exhausting it is to read and I assure you all that it wipes me out as well. I appreciate the support given and to come, it really does help. You'll see some marked improvement by the end of this chapter and thanks to everyone who is still around and seeing my little creative (and at times very uncreative) muse through. Special thanks to **escapismrocks** who kept me from deleting this whole thing in a bout of frustration and starting over. Enjoy-  
**_  
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**_ -----_**

_Mistakes our fathers made will always be the same that we make_

_ Oh we never learn _

_We light up our hands and watch them burn_

_…_

_It's such a lonely world and _

_I found someone who made it all seem right again_

_But I let fear get in the middle and I ran and I stopped to look back_

_…_

_Hold on to your gold_

_When you find her, never let her go_

_…_

_Oh dreamer, I never should have let go of your hand_

_Oh dreamer, I swear I'll regret it for the rest of my days_

_- Chelsea Wolfe, "Gold"_

**_-----_**

Drenched to the core, complete with chattering teeth and involuntary shivers running through her limbs, Addison sits outside the hospital on one of the famed benches. The benches that she is certain nurses take round the clock shifts watching just to make sure something gossip worthy doesn't happen outside of the immediate doors of the mill. Glancing at her watch she knows she's been out too long, she knew that without looking.

People pass her by. Family members just having finished visiting the dying and sick, nurses switching off, nurses coming on, scrub clad interns dragging their heavy bodies toward the cars they shouldn't be operating. She watches the rain hit the walkway with such force that the tiny droplets spray back up into the air after impact. Exploding, bouncing, reaching higher than she knows how to these days. They splatter against the lightning in the background and the hospital lighting in the foreground.

She lets her mind blank with each passing droplet that sizzles and runs into the cracks of the ground. Tries to watch as the bonds converge and flow into oblivion. Water is a tricky thing. It gives and it takes. She tries to let it cleanse her skin; let it run through her damp tendrils and onto her neck. Gasps when it trickles down the collar of her shirt, exhales when it warms against her flesh, shivers when the wind turns it all cold again. It's a never ending cycle that she could very well break by placing her hand inside the dry purse and pulling out the rental keys, that is if her feet didn't feel like cement blocks.

She stares at her shoes. Her pumps, the way they pinch her toes, the way the heels feel too snug, the way they hurt with every step and the reason she will never stop wearing them because they do. It's the worst out of body sensation she has ever felt. Amidst the various pain killers (for perfectly legitimate reasons mind you), alcohol lubricated nights and emotional turmoil where she swore that that could not possibly be her life, this tops them all. It's like watching a train wreck. It's crashing a car into a brick wall just so you'll never have to walk again. It is staying to watch the fire burn to the ground and then playing in the potentially staining ashes.

She can't stop.

**_-----_**

"You want soup?" Mark asks flipping through the room service menu thirty minutes after giving up on Addison coming home and giving in to the annoying, whiny child who needs to be fed something, anything.

"No." She states defiantly.

"Sandwich?"

"No."

"Omelet?" And then he questions if children even eat omelets.

"Ew."

So 'no eggs' he thinks to himself and settles his eyes on something she may enjoy. "How about pancakes?"

Ellie tilts her head to the side, thinking it over before reasserting, "No."

"Do you even know what you want?" He sighs exasperatedly.

"No."

"Great, you're queen of the one word answer tonight. Helpful Elle, real helpful." He mutters before lifting the receiver and ordering more food than necessary in the vague hope that someone besides him will eat. Nestling the phone back into its cradle he glances over at Kennedy who is perfectly content to lie on the purple fuzzy blanket staring up at brightly colored toys that dangle above her eyes. If only he could find one that would work on the older child he would be in luck.

"Why you call me that?"

"Call you what?" He mentally recites the last bits of conversation hoping that no swear words made it out verbally no matter how loudly they were playing in the backdrop.

"Elle."

"Oh, I dunno. Elianna goes to Ellie…or Anna I guess and if you shorten that it's Elle. I don't know. Are you offended?"

"Offended?"

"Does that bother you?" He returns more careful to use childhood language and logic, not that he knows what that entails or remembers anything useful.

"No."

"And we're back to that."

**_-----_**

"Addison?" Comes the voice long before she dares lift her head to acknowledge Kathleen's presence.

"Hi." She mutters meekly and then suddenly becomes all too aware of her image. She tucks her hands into their home and tries to straighten her back. Posture can be very eluding.

"Hey, what are you doing out in the rain?" She doesn't get a response. Instead she sits, grimacing when the wetness immediately soaks through her pants. "Earth to Addison. Come in…Addie?"

"Kathleen you don't need to sit outside with me."

"I want to." It's a lie. It's obviously a lie. No one wants to sit in the freezing rain with an equally pathetic looking woman who has the ability to affect moods based on simple shrugs and frowns.

She laughs a little, at the lie. It's involuntary. That's the reply you give when someone says something ridiculous. Unless, of course you are willing to call them on it, and she's not. She doesn't have the energy. "Really, I'm fine. I just wanted to catch some fresh air before heading back."

"You are going back to L.A.?" Kathleen asks probably too enthused for the whole encounter.

"No, I meant the hotel. I have to go back to the hotel."

"Oh, right. Where's Mark?"

"Hotel."

"Ah." She doesn't know how to follow up. She doesn't know how to switch off the ex-sister in-law friendliness and say the right things. She knows how to analyze; she knows how to ask the right questions, she knows how to listen but Addison doesn't want that. She doesn't want anything, she's made that clear. "Well, I just stopped off to check on Derek who is driving the nurses crazy when he doesn't have company so I should probably be getting back as well. Get rested for tomorrow's rounds of Go Fish and War." Normally this is when she would hug her. A little awkward pat on the back to signify closeness but Addison doesn't make a move when she stands up. "Night Addie, I'll see you around."

"'Night Kathleen."  
**_  
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**_-----_**

"Could you both stop crying please!" Mark shouts at no one in particular. He's tried feeding, burping, changing and one daring baby bath that did nothing to improve Kennedy and now Elianna has joined the party. Setting the infant down on the bed, signaling his defeat he moves toward the floor where the older of the two has flopped down face first and buried her head into the carpet and is pounding her feet every so often.

"What is wrong with you?" He's not getting an answer, he didn't expect one. He pulls her from the flat location and places her on his lap, rocking back and forth, lightly stroking the red wisps back from the wetness on her face. Her sobs subside into a series of hiccups and gasps before her mouth falls open effectively emptying the contents of her stomach onto Mark's button down shirt. He cringes when the smell of vomit hits his nostrils, (thankful for the pancakes and veto of eggs because he can't imagine what that would be like) nearly gagging himself and then tries to block out everything. Maybe he shouldn't have forced her to eat.

"Was that really necessary?"

"I don't feel good." She whimpers before heaving again.

"You could've mentioned that earlier." He snarls and then lifts them both from the floor before settling her in the bath tub with the guarantee that he will be right back after he changes. It works with drunk people, why not here?

Dipping back into the room he moves the screaming, wiggling infant back to her spot under the toy thingy and prays she will shut the hell up so he can think for ten seconds. He peels the shirt that he doesn't even want to think about anymore off and chucks it into the wastebasket before reaching for a clean plain white t-shirt and calling up for a maid. He cracks the windows, takes a deep breath of the rainy dark air, curses Addison for being late and tries to switch into doctor mode.

He thinks of symptoms, remedies and any other tid bits of information he can pull from memory that have anything to do with vomiting. He knows, deep down, it's some stupid kid thing, apparently they are like disease carriers, but it would be easier to approach if he didn't know the lonely eyes in the bath tub, if he wasn't acquainted with the small body leaning against the tiled wall.

He waits the four or so minutes it takes housekeeping to come up and lets the poor soul with a hall cart and orange rubber gloves into the room before peeking into the bathroom to find Ellie crying again. He checks her forehead for a temperature to find her a little warm for his liking and then for the hell of it checks her pulse to find it rapid with adrenaline. Squatting down next to bathtub he wipes her mouth with a wet hand towel and offers her a plastic cup of water from the sink. She drinks too heartily and then expels again, the watery mess onto his new shirt. Lesson learned.

Convinced she has zero aim he quickly discards that shirt by throwing it into the corner and decides he may as well stay shirtless if the rest of evening is going to go like this. Facing opposite her he reclines against the wall and waits and waits. "Are you done?"

She nods her head and he winces skeptically.

"Are you sure?"

She nods again this time adding watery eyes to the mix and lets the moisture use its escape route down her face.

"Stop crying." It will only upset her fragile stomach more, he knows this but he doesn't know how to word it more eloquently so it comes out as sort of a growl.

She flinches, gasps, chokes, coughs, gags and then does the unthinkable. He's only happy he didn't try and remove her from the bathtub yet. He offers the cup again telling her to take it easy and then waits five minutes to ensure none of it is coming back up. "Alright, let's get you to bed."

She lifts her arms weakly into the air and lets them suspend in the warm atmosphere for thirty seconds before he realizes that she wants to be held. Making his way up onto his feet he plucks her from the space, turns the hot water on to rinse out the mess and heads back toward the room sighing when he notices that the infant has finally stopped crying but now definitely needs a new diaper. He respectfully attempts to exit the room after setting her on the bed but Ellie begins whimpering pitifully again and leaves him wondering what the hell his parents always did when he was sick.

Then he remembers that his parents were shit and when he had a tummy ache he usually begged to stay the night at Derek's. Mom would always make some warm tea, read him a little something special, a little longer than the rest of the kids and tuck him in with a trash can next to the double bed he shared with Derek so he wouldn't have to try and find the bathroom in the dark and in turn damage the carpet in the hallway. Derek used to hate when he came over sick. He smirks thinking about the attention and then roots around in Elianna's suitcase for (what he would come to know as) a Carebears themed night gown.

"Change and I will be right back, ok? Wait hold on. Don't change yet. Don't move." He states hesitantly looking around for a garbage can to steal the bag from. "Ok, put your clothes in here and then I will be right back after I change your sister."

"Stay with me." She whines and then gives up when he exits the room without a second thought to her plea.

**_-----_**

She sees her before actually making it through the doors. Feeble and slumped forward, her head in her hands and her elbows resting upon her thighs in a very un-Addison like pose. They haven't spoken much since she took off without a word. Or with a word, a very misleading word that lent itself to Callie thinking she would be helping her friend decorate in Seattle. She didn't feel bad when she came back but then again she didn't know the circumstances.

She's been watching her from a distance, trying not to be stalker-esc, only attempting to think of a way to approach her. They haven't said a word since Addison stepped foot or heel rather into the elevators a few days ago. But in her defense, Callie's been busy. Dealing with interns, dealing with her soon to be ex-husband, dealing with the dirty mistress, dealing with life and all of its chaos. Chaos that Addison always manages to make look miniscule in comparison and maybe she's not up for comparison lately. Maybe she's been beaten down just enough to not want to fight and the way that same essence glimmers off of Addison is unnerving. She decides to chance it and throws her large black purse over her shoulder and takes a seat on the rain soaked bench without a word. They sit in tandem, in anticipation, while the rain pours down like an enveloping curtain of coldness.

She brushes a wayward black curl out of her face when the water begins to edge a track down her tired face. Gracefully she reaches for her friend's hand, pulling it from the wool coat and lightly squeezes without words. Then they stare out into the water pools that reflect the warm yellow light of the lamps on the walkway. Both thinking, both looking for escape routes.

It takes her a few minutes to come to, a few minutes to realize that this isn't appropriate for others to be witnessing. Breakdowns don't happen in public places, or at least they shouldn't. "Callie, you don't have to sit here." She chokes out as her throat constricts from the other woman's compassion, her unwarranted but not unwanted compassion.

"Well hello to you too."

"Hi." She tries again with a small smile as their eyes meet for the first time in months.

"I missed you, you know? Needed you around lately and I didn't know where to find you."

"You have my number." She leans back, relaxing into the drops that will soon soak through the heavy coat.

"I figured you left because you didn't want to be found."

"Well, that was a thought but I would have welcomed your voice, trust me."

"We'll get back to your punishment another day and believe me, there will be punishment but-"

Tilting her head and clenching her jaw Addison forces, "I'm fine Callie. I really- I'm doing better."

"You don't look better, although I don't really know what was before so I can only give an educated guess as to what-"

"My sister died."

"I heard."

"Then why'd you make me-"

"It helps if you start to say it out loud. You're gonna have to trust me on that, but start admitting it to everyone else and then you can admit it to yourself." She's got too much personal experience on this. She'd rather not share, she'd rather not think about the fact that at one point she wasn't her parents' only child. So Callie rolls her neck, popping it back into place after a too long surgery and waiting.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't have to. Like this- Ok, let's say you are with Mark." Though she doesn't know, the rumors may have been partially true and in that case McDreamy should run back to Meredith as fast as possible.

"I am with Mark."

"Right but I mean really, really with him, like in a relationship not just toting him around like he's a functional carry-on robot from the Jetsons."

"I am." Addison defends more adamantly. She hasn't gone through this hell to end up with a robot whatever that means.

"Are you?" Callie asks standing again. She can save the pep-talk for another time; Addison has probably been getting far too many of those anyway. They don't work for every personality. She takes purposeful steps away daring Addison to say something. Something to protect her position. As her shoes hit the concrete she knows what step she's in, she's not there yet. Almost, but not quite. She grins and is gone into the sea of half working cars and the cherry red sports cars of the board members who are busy on the fifth floor conference room looking over new applicants for various positions.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

It's been too long. It was too long before. Now, now nearly two hours later it is without a doubt too late. She should have been back. His stomach twists into knots as he reaches for his cell phone while trying to change a diaper with one hand. His fingers hit the speed dial and he listens to the familiar voice mail reel its unpleasant announcement that Dr. Montgomery is not available but if he leaves his name and a phone number she will contact him as soon as humanly possible. He gripes and tosses the phone to the floor before securing one of the sticky sides on the plastic disposable diaper. She kicks uncontrollably and grins as he runs his fingers up her spindly legs. Pausing to tickle her bare stomach he nearly twists his neck off trying to turn when Ellie peeks her head out from her room.

They are within an hour of the last episode of vomit and he would really prefer to think she is done but as she kneels down and pukes on the carpet he knows he is out of luck. While pondering how in the world it is possible for her to have that much in her stomach he feels the unfortunate tingling in his own and is dashing to make it to the bathroom in time. Apparently this bug jumps carriers quickly. Rinsing his mouth he turns back to the small child who has followed him into the bathroom and has settled ungracefully into a heap on the ground. "You got me sick."

"I don't feel good." She trembles back, once more like he didn't get the memo the first time. He's about to agree when Kennedy begins crying again and then suddenly he is overwhelmed. This is hell. There's no other explanation. He retches again before being able to pull himself from the porcelain god and attending to the screaming.

"Ellie just stop wandering around, you need to rest." 'We all need to rest,' he finishes in his head as the aching migraine comes into play.

"I can't. It hurts."

"Mine hurts too." He counters looking for his phone to call up for housekeeping yet again and thinking about telling them to just stay the night with him. He throws his request down the line and settles leaning back up against the side of the bed trying not to notice the spit up smell coming from the infant next to him. It's going to be a long night.

**_-----_**

She is busy consciously trying to figure out how long she can sit here before someone either calls the police or sends Richard out. It's been a few hours since the last time she looked at her watch but it all feels the same. She doesn't notice Miranda until she is towering over her, hands on hips, face fixed in a scowl. "Sloan just called me. Me. What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Thinking."

"Think at home, like a normal person. Your boyfriend has called half the damn hospital."

"Sorry." She whispers pretending to be interested in the quest for her keys.

"No your not. What's the deal here?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing," she tells her as she shifts her weight from foot to foot, "Nothing is the- deal."

"Uh-huh. I know that face. Scoot over or go home."

She pauses too long, too long to be leaving so she scoots down the wet bench.

"Alright, I don't like sitting in the rain so this better be quick…and I'm just assuming it has something to do with those two jackasses so no need to state the obvious points."

"Derek wants me to stay here."

"And you want?"

Shocked she turns to her former co-worker, one of her only friends here. The one that demanded she not be defined by men is now curious about what she wants from one of the said men. "What do I want?"

"Well, yeah. What do you want?"

"I don't know. No one ever really asked me," she tips her head to the side in thought; "I think it would be nice to have Derek around the children. He's a bad husband-"

"He was a shitty husband." Miranda remarks and lets her continue.

"Right but-"

"He'd be a good father." She finishes the thought.

"He will be a good father. I can't. How do you do this, tell me Miranda. How?" The desperation leaks through her cracked voice and she fights away the emotions while dropping the keys back in their home. Who is she kidding?

"I will tell you what I told Derek."

"Great."

She stands, "You already know what to do Addison, if you didn't it wouldn't hurt this much." She saunters back into the doors without another word.

"What does that mean?" She shouts out to no one before dropping her voice. "This is so my life."

**_-----_**

"Addison? What did, how did you get back in here?" Derek asks as the light creeps in under the door that is now closing. She hastily flips the lights and he squints groaning.

"Alright, I thought about it."

"You thought about it."

"It would go faster if you didn't repeat everything." She states refusing to sit down, trying to keep up the masquerade of power.

He's not mentioning anything about her soaking wet appearance or streaked mascara. Now is not the time. "Right."

"You were- you were a shitty husband."

"Addison-" He scolds immediately. Her vocabulary has seriously gone down hill.

"No, don't. You were a shitty husband," This time he notices how she grimaces when she says it, "but you'll be a good father and even though you were a- shitty husband you deserve the chance to be a good father."

"I'm sorry." He mumbles and watches as she paces the room with a seeming fury of fire he hasn't seen since the day she told him she was pregnant on the beach.

"You've said that so much that it doesn't even sound like words to me anymore. Stop being, stop being- just stop and do the father thing. That's all I want, that's all I need. Uncomplicated as it can possibly be."

"What about Mark?"

"We'll fight about that issue at another time. Right now it's none of your business. I don't know a lot of anything right now but I know I want you to be more than just acquaintances with your children and I want Mark for me, I need Mark." She gathers her purse from the chair feeling only slightly more accomplished and heads for the door.

"Why Mark?"

That she knows. "Because…he takes me the way I am. Broken, falling apart, hormonal, pushy, borderline psychotic- me. I don't have to pretend for him like I did with you. What you want Derek, is what we were and I'm not that person anymore. I won't pretend to be happy for the rest of my life when I could actually be happy with him."

"You don't know that."

"I'll take my chances." Chances that he'll leave as soon as she tells him that she is staying in Seattle but nonetheless, this is what has to happen. She doesn't have the choice.

She never did. Score one for Miranda.

**_-----_**

"Naomi?" She asks when her friend's voice crackles over the line.

Standing precariously in Sam's bedroom Naomi covers herself with a robe and darts from the bed before the sleeping man awakens. Toeing down the stairs she takes a seat in the chair facing the ocean outside in the warm sea breeze. "Addison?"

"Hi."

"It's late."

"Oh, yeah I know. Sorry."

"It's fine." Well she would rather be curled up in Sam's chocolaty muscle ridden arms but Violet's report was bleak and she is happy to hear her pitiable voice even if it is pressing midnight.

"I think, no, I know. I'm staying here."

"How long?"

"I don't know yet. Derek will need someone to watch him when he is finally released and he should get to be around when the…twins." She gasps and then chokes coughing.

"You okay?" Naomi asks tightening her robe and heading toward the inviting sand. She sinks down to her ankle and squishes the tiny grains in between her toes until the feeling is unbearable.

"I'm having twins. I'm having, I'm pregnant." She states astonished.

"This is a fact of life."

"No, I know but I'm…me? I'm going to have a baby…babies, plural."

"That is generally what twins means. Addison, focus."

Trekking across the parking lot and heading for Joe's, Addison stands at an empty crosswalk challenging herself to just dart into the bar without the permission of the signal light. "Sorry."

"You really need to stop apologizing."

"Mark said that."

"It's true and annoying. Look, I'm sure you just made this decision and though you aren't yourself, you are still polite enough to notify your employer immediately. While I appreciate that, I would really like to go back to bed and call you in the morning. Deal?"

"I miss you Nae." She whispers as the green person becomes illuminated and she starts walking, dodging the puddles, she's done with the rain now.

"I've missed you. You okay up there, Mark not being too big of an ass?"

"He's, well he's very patient."

"That's good."

"Why can't Seattle and Los Angeles be twenty minutes apart?" She whines into the phone while reaching for the door handle.

"I'm not sure Addie. Be…don't do something stupid with this new found realization ok? I'll talk to you in a few hours."

"Have fun with Sam." She retorts with a little grin as her hand graces the small bump of her stomach and she throws her purse into a booth.

"How did-"

"I'm not your best friend just because I share my white chocolate raspberry cheesecake on occasion."

"Welcome back Addison."

"Night Nae."

"Night." She recites flipping her phone shut and marveling about her friend's insane abilities.

**_-----_**

Perched on a hard barstool she pops another nut into her mouth and swirls the cold water through her teeth and along her gums. She thought about drinking but somehow the sensible side of her personality spoke up and demanded that she not push her luck tonight. Grabbing her glass she saunters back the previous booth that now holds Callie with her head down on the table.

"Hey, here drink some water."

"I don't want water." Callie mumbles staring at her lined up empty shot glasses. "Ever think that if you drunk enough you could just disappear, like float up into the sky or sink to the bottom of the ocean and then nothing would matter anymore?"

"Those are the kind of dreams I have been praying for lately." Addison replies.

"Yeah." She shrugs lifting her head form the wood. "You sound better."

"I'm having a temporary moment of sanity. Empowerment if you will."

"Ah, yeah those come and go for awhile."

"How do you know? Most people wander around telling me they understand-"

She snorts and runs her finger along the rim of the water glass, "Isn't that the best?"

"It's what you say, I've said it before. I just didn't realize how ridiculous it sounded until now. It's…almost offensive but-."

"It does shed a new light on things."

She thinks it over for a second. Someone once told Addison that colors weren't as bright and things didn't smell as fragrant after someone had passed, a cloud of grief veiled everything. She doesn't see it though. Colors are the same, sometimes so vivid they hurt her eyes and things smell, things are as potent as they always were. She supposes it's that she just doesn't notice anymore. She doesn't care if a car is cherry red or if the clouds are almost black. She doesn't hesitate when it smells like rain or when the pavement reeks of heat. It just doesn't matter. She nods, "Yeah."

"My sister died when I was 17." She swallows heavily looking around for some alcohol to cure her parched throat.

"Oh, Cal."

"Don't…just I wanted you to know I'm not spouting off some bullshit to you 'cause I think I know what I'm talkin' about. Everyone does it differently. Some people take years, some take weeks but whoever you are things are never the same. Never…." her voice drops as the tears clout her vision of happy dancing vodka, "…I took off. That's how I coped. Ran off to college and pretended like everything was happy, normal, business as usual at home. I abandoned my family because it hurt…my mother she wouldn't talk to anyone for months, my dad threw himself into his work…they got through it. You get through it cause you don't have a choice…you don' have a choice Addie-son."

"Callie-"

"No, you do it. Just keep breathing and then at some point it hurts less, and then less after that and then there's just a dull ache where a searing pain used to live…today's her birthday, would have been her birthday. Oh, fuck the tenses!…I don't care! Today is her birthday. I'm drinking to my sister."

"I think you need to stop."

"No, no…because life is shit Addison. Life is shit and you have a mannywhore runnin' round after you and you jus' don't care. I have a cheating husband, ex-husband…correction. An ex and a dead sister and a family who is still trying to throw me a wedding party because I'm too 'fraid to call 'em up and say I'm a failure. Failure, let's drink to that, where's my drink?" She asks looking around slightly dazed.

Addison sighs, trying to conjure up the power to be in the moment, trying not to run out of the bar and going to the nearest corner to hide. Negative energy moves far too quickly and her sense of goodwill is gone. "Callie. We're done drinking."

"You're done drinking. You can't drink, you're having babies…babies I was tryin' to have babies with George…with George Addison!"

"I heard mention of that a time or two. Come on." She hoists the sullen woman onto her arm and reaches for her purse signaling to Joe that they are headed out for the night.

Slowly they make their way toward the cab that is patiently waiting. Her friend dissolves into a puddle across the backseat and Addison takes the front seat giving directions ever so often. "Callie, wake up…you're home."

"I'm never home." She murmurs peeling her face from the dingy leather of the cab.

"You going to be okay here tonight, do you want me to call someone?" Addison asks helping her out of the cab and explaining to the driver that if he'll wait ten minutes she'll tip ridiculously. "Come on." She begs jabbing the elevator light. After settling Callie into her bed and pulling off her shoes she heads for the door.

"Thanks Addieloo." Callie calls out as the wood creaks open.

"Anytime."

**_-----_**

From his spot perched over the white toilet he can see that Ellie has finally fallen asleep, of course not in her own room, and that Kennedy probably will have to be fed shortly. Contemplating the effects of warm formula on his queasy stomach he doesn't hear the door creak open. He lets his head fall to the seat and covers the back of his neck with a hand while the other one falls carelessly to his side. This is so much worse than his last hangover.

"Mark, why isn't she sleeping in her own bed and why is…Mark?" Addison asks walking around.

"In here." He calls weakly.

She follows his voice to bathroom and decides that maybe she'd rather not find him right now, depending. "Are you-"

"No. I am not doing anything like that." He reassures before she stalks into the room with still damp hair.

"Oh. Are you sick?"

"We are all sick, I think." He retorts angrily recalling the last few hours. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"How did you all get sick?"

Raising his head and watching the world spin he tries to set his eyes into a glare and fails ridiculously. "Where in god's name have you been Addison?"

"Did you guys eat something-"

"Answer my question!"

"I was at the hospital." She replies meekly fiddling with the button on her coat.

"This whole time? Visiting hours are over, have been over. So what you taking on surgeries or something? Volunteer in the pit, steal an intern's charts?"

"I didn't know I was under interrogation Mark." She says pointedly as he slides up against the wall.

"I have a right to know."

"Yeah." She nods and drops her purse on the counter before joining him on the floor. She raises her hand to feel his forehead and he smacks it away before letting his head fall to her shoulder. "I'm sorry I was gone for so long."

"What were you doing?"

"Does it matter? I came back, didn't I?" She answers brushing a few matted hairs from his temple.

"It matters to me. It mattered to Ellie when she needed someone to cuddle with and got stuck with me, it mattered when she was crying and I couldn't do anything right. It mattered to the baby when I couldn't feed her because every time I thought about a hot bottle I had to heave. It matters damn it."

"I sat." She helps him off the floor and tries to ignore the smells of vomit ridden clothing as they enter the main room heading for the bed.

"You sat?" He questions as she pulls at his shoes and lifts his feet onto the bed before covering him with the only blanket Ellie is wrapped tightly in.

"I sat in the rain."

"Why in-"

"I needed to think. I need to think without you looking at me like I should let you help me. You're still doing it Mark and I…I'm not going to do this while you are sick. Just sleep and we can discuss every second I was gone in the morning if you want."

"Fine." He snarls and lets his eyes fall to a close with the lingering image of Addison finally removing her coat.

Their night riddled with changing beds and sheets and then beds again finds them in the morning with Ellie curled into Mark's sleeping shoulder and Addison wide awake attempting to play with the squirming infant on the floor.

"You hate me kiddo?" She asks quietly when Mark stirs and then rolls back over. "I hope not because I have a feeling, a hunch if you will, that you are kind of, well stuck with me." She watches as Kennedy kicks her bare legs wildly and reaches up to grab a handful of hair. "Ah, that's mine thank you very much." She swings it over to the other side before tickling the diaper clad girl in front of her.

"You know you kind of look like her." She whispers, "Yes, you do. The hair of course but you have her smile…not that you smile a lot yet but neither did she so I guess that's fitting. And you have her nose. This nose." She smiles as she reaches out to brush the soft skin. "I think I am having a good day and you are clearly having a good day. No crying for…" she drifts on checking her watch, "…a whole two hours. Whatever has become of you?"

Rifling through the suitcase on her left she pulls out the desired clothing and begins to pull arm one through the proper hole when Mark brushes a kiss to her head. "Don't get me sick."

"I'm not." He gruffly replies and then carefully takes a seat next to her. "So…a good day?"

Slightly mortified that he heard her rambling she subconsciously becomes a lovely rose color before answering, "I think so. I don't really know yet. We're only a few hours into it."

"No morning sickness today?" He asks shuffling closer and helping snap the outfit together to her surprise.

"Not yet."

"That's good." Thinking back to the night before and his not so great actions he replies, "There's probably a few voicemails on your cell phone that you should delete if it's a good day."

Blatantly ignoring the previous day she moves on. "How do you feel?"

"Eh, I've been better…but I think the worst is in past."

"You should be asleep then." She stands taking the infant and tucks her back in under the fluffy blanket of the hotel appropriated crib. The one piece of furniture that didn't have to be cleaned last night. She makes a mental note to leave the largest tip in the history of all gratuities for housekeeping, it is certainly warranted. He follows closely behind before retreating to the couch and shivers while clicking the remote on. "Mark, she'll wake up. Turn it off and go back to sleep. I'll just read or something. I'm okay."

"I want to talk. You said we could."

As soon as the words leave his mouth her heart flutters to the floor. She thought the act was convincing, hell she was even buying into it a little. Her throat constricts fully prepared to cry it out while she relaxes her breathing and tries to remain in control. "Ok." Because he deserves it she thinks, he deserves to at least know where she goes when she disappears even if she can't explain the rest.

"Come over here."

"I'm fine here." She retorts leaning over the back of the chair ten feet from him.

"No. I'm not going to raise my voice because you want to stand across the room. I turned the TV on so we would have background noise just in case a pair of small ears woke up." Actually he turned it on to have a distraction but it sounds better the other way.

She crosses the space between them and takes a seat on the end of the couch putting a good three feet between them. He reaches out to caress her bare calf and she recoils back into the arm of the cream colored piece of furniture. "No touching. Talking."

"I want to touch while I talk." He explains plainly grabbing her ankle and pulling her down toward him until her leg is across his lap. Touching is his communication. When words fail, a simple kiss can say it all…or so he thinks.

"I can't. Don't." Pulling her leg back she settles for folding into a ball and clutching her knees to her chest.

"Why can't you? I can fuck you in the shower until you can't stand properly but I can't massage you leg while we try and have a decent civil conversation?"

"No." She explodes well over the volume of the TV in front of her.

"Why?"

"I don't want the comfort."

"Oh, since when Addison? All I ever do is comfort you. You call me crying and-"

"I just can't Mark. I can't be touched like that. Not right now. It makes me feel like I should be crying, it makes me want to cry and I'm tired…and I can't so don't."

"Why is everything always on your terms? What if I don't feel well and want to…cuddle with you? What then?"

"I can do that, I guess." She answers shifting to his chest and slipping her head under his before breathing in his familiar scent. There's something about the way her reaches out and tucks her hair behind her ear and the way his hand brushes her face, the way he rubs her back when he hugs her that makes her feel boxed in. Makes her feel trapped in her own situation, like he is expecting her to fall apart at every turn of a corner and it just sends up a dozen red flags but if the comfort role is reversed and he needs this then it's fine somehow. She's not diving into the logic; all she knows is what she feels.

"Why is this ok?" He asks dropping his voice.

She swallows heavily trying to get the lump out of the way. "Just is. I don't know, can we just drop it already?"

"You promise to tell me when you figure it out?"

"Sure."

"And you promise to tell me when you actually want a hug instead of letting me guess all the fucking time?"

"Yes."

"Ok then." He thinks about pressing a lingering kiss to her hair but decides not to push his luck and loosens up the grip he already has around her waist. "Where'd you go last night?"

"The hospital, I told you that already." She snuggles a little deeper into him, her voice coming out muffled and hushed.

"You said you sat though."

"I did. I sat in the rain."

"You sat in the rain?" He questions trying to figure out why anyone would want to be caught in the downpour of this city for more than the thirty seconds it takes to get out of a car and into a building, especially Addison.

"Yeah." She chokes out letting the thoughts come crashing back.

"And then?"

"Then I called Naomi and then I found Callie at Joe's and took her back to her room and-"

"You and Torres?" He asks suggestively while grinning widely and ignoring the fact that his pregnant girlfriend migrated to a bar for unknown reasons.

"No pervert, gosh even when you are sick." She shakes her head, "She was drunk. I took her up to her room, took off her shoes and nothing else and then came back here. Happy?"

"We're getting there." He holds his hand up to stroke back the fallen red tangles that cover her face and then stops himself again.

"I'm sorry." She mutters from her hiding spot.

"Well it would have been nice if you would have picked up your phone last night but if you needed some free time then that's all you need to say from now on."

"I can't. I'm…I have those two and I need to do something about-"

"Addison, I may suck at watching children and I may get mad when they vomit all over me but I will do it for you. If you think you are going insane then let me know and I'll watch them while you go shop or whatever it is that you girls do."

"I'm always insane. I hate this." She pushes deeper into his chest not realizing until now how badly she wanted to be held until now.

"It gets better." He tries stopping the hand cradling her back from rubbing up and down.

"You don't know that." She aches out before he feels the hot tears on his bare skin.

"Yes, I do. It will get better because it can't get any damn worse." He thinks it over and then decides it works before adding, "You have to start telling me things."

"I know." She sobs, "But I don't want you to think I'm all screwed up and then run away…I don't want you to run away. I don't want to lose you again."

"So you try and be fine?" Except she isn't fine, she's never fine anymore and she does a rather shitty job of disguising it when it comes to him. She nods or shuffles he isn't sure. "Hey." He states tipping her chin up and trying to find her eyes.

"What?"

"I still want you, even if you are screwed up. You're my kind of screwed up and I'm happy to have a level playing field for once." He jokes and she grimaces because she's been fucked up far longer than he knows about, far worse than he cares to think and the idea of him being able to see those insecurities and being able to recognize that she isn't as strong as she portrays herself to be is absolutely terrifying. "What do we need to do to make this thing work Addie because we aren't doing very well right now and-"

"I know, it's my fault." She snivels putting her head back down.

"And mine. I'll take a little responsibility." He pauses, "I think you need to start seeing someone. Someone you can talk to because it isn't me and as much as I would like it to be me-"

"I'm not-"

"Hear me out Addison, just listen and then you can balk and run away to a corner to hide the day away."

"I won't do that anymore." She bargains when he lifts his legs onto the couch and rearranges them. It's anything to forget the past, to stop reliving the torture everyday.

"You will, you know you will."

"I won't." And she thinks that she could actually stop. If she tried hard enough she could make the days where she can't find the strength to get out of bed bearable enough to deal with the people around her.

"This is something I don't understand. I can't relate and I'm sorry that I get mad at you a lot…I know it's painful and I get frustrated and I'm probably the worst guy to try and do this with but for what it's worth I'm kind of happy you picked me." There's no response as she shudders on top of him and claws at his skin trying to find fabric to wind her hands into. He doesn't get that, he doesn't really get any of it but for the first time in a while he is starting to think that he doesn't have to because she picked him, she wants him and that is all that matters. He holds her tighter and relaxes when she doesn't fight back for the first time in weeks.

"Ok, I'll go." She whispers as he gives into his urges and begins stroking her head.

"Thank god." He chuckles, "I was running out of plans…Addie?"

"Hmm?"

"I love yo-" His proclamation cut short by tiny whimpers on the bed behind them, his eyes dart from one redhead to another to another.

"Mommy!" Ellie wails, dragging out every syllable possible, with her eyes closed and her legs tangled in the many blankets.

Expertly shifting off the couch, Mark squeezes Addison's hand before letting go. "I got it."

"I should…she wants her," she gulps back the impending tears, "her mother and-"

"She's sick and half awake, I handled this last night- I can manage." He assures her before draping the blanket over her quivering body and approaching the flailing child. A weight has noticeably been lifted.

The fighting is over. Finally.

**_-----_**

* * *


	27. All the things I should have said

A/N: So at some point this stopped wanting to be written. We fought, battled and slowly I overcame. To me this chapter is wonky and just a touch off but it's mainly set up for the next so I hope you enjoy it's weirdness and cut me a little slack for not updating in a month because it is almost mind numbingly long. Thanks to **escapismrocks** for remembering the storyline better than I. :) Here it is-

**_-__----_**  
_Hey, I wanna crawl out of my skin_  
_Apologize for all my sins_  
_All the things I should have said to you_  
_Hey, I can't make it go away_  
_Over and over in my brain again_  
_All the things I should have said to you_  
_…_  
_Counting stars wishing I was okay _  
_Crashing down was my biggest mistake_  
_I never ever, ever meant to hurt you_  
_I only did what I had to _  
_Counting stars again_  
_…_  
_Hey, I'll take this day by day by day_  
_Under the covers I'm okay I guess_  
_Life's too short and I feel small_  
_- Sugarcult, "Counting Stars"_  
**_-----_**

"Addison can you come over here please?" Mark calls from his spot on the bed. He spent the better part of the morning cradling Ellie while she fought for sleep and Addison busied herself by attempting to care for the infant in the other room hoping that neither one of them would catch what the other two had. The talks have been put on hold. As always, as ever it seems.

"What?" She shouts ten feet away peering through the small doorway that separates the two spaces.

"Come here." He yells back and then lies his head against the pillow letting the waves of exhaustion roll over him like a concrete mixer. His temples are throbbing, his stomach is turning, his eyes are trying to explode into tiny fragments and he can only imagine how Elianna feels.

Shuffling along the carpet she pulls her hands into her sleeves and smirks when she sees the two figures cuddled into each other. Who would have ever thought Mark could care for something under five feet tall, she muses and regrets the day she ever said he'd make a horrible father. Though completely true at the time she can't help but smile about how he has morphed through the last few months. "What's up?"

"She's on fire."

"Hmmm…" She tip toes around and uncovers the shivering child and pulling into her arms. She brushes back the loose curls and verifies his statement. "When's the last time you took her temperature?"

"Do I look like I have a thermometer handy Addison? I don't have a dad tool belt." He snaps and then pinches the bridge of his nose begging the hammers to stop pounding within his skull.

"Right." She shakes the girl a little and runs a cool hand over her neck. "Ellie..wake up honey." Grumbling she flutters her eyelids and then lets them come to a close again without muttering anything coherent. "Elianna, you need to wake up and take some medicine...which would only work if we had medicine. I'm such a great caregiver."

"No. Medicine is icky." She mumbles rolling into Mark and instinctually nudging her head next to his chest.

"Has she had anything to drink?" She asks growing frustrated.

"What?" He replies with half closed eyes.

"Mark, I know you're sick but I need your help."

"I know."

"Has she had anything to drink or eat…or anything?"

"Last night?"

"Yeah or any time that you were with her and I wasn't?" She stretches her legs out on the bed and begins playing with Ellie's hair while waiting for a response.

"No, I don't think so. She's slept." He murmurs before leaning over the side of the bed to throw up again in the trash can that is working hard for its existence.

"Don't start that." Addison begs turning away. Her stomach is queasy enough on its own.

"I did not pick this." He snarls and tugs the spare blanket around them increasing the fluff density to about a foot. "Fuck, this thing comes in waves. I thought I was fine."

"No more blankets Mark. Come on…she needs to wake up and at least drink something."

"She wants to sleep, God I want to sleep." She runs a few fingers through Ellie's hair to rouse her again and sighs long enough for Mark to take notice and feel guilty. "I'm sorry Addison." He mumbles trying not to move out of fear.

"It's not your fault. You didn't get her sick, she got you sick. I just don't think I can take care of all of you." She whispers honestly.

"I know. Don't worry about me. I'll be alright."

"You better be." She sits up straighter reaching for the glass of water on the end table. She lifts it to Ellie's lips and demands that she take at least one sip. After finally being satisfied with the intake she wanders back to the other room leaving the sickness quarantined.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

One excruciating hour later the decision was made. They slowly loaded everyone into Addison's rental and headed toward the big bad doors of the hospital clinic to ensure things were actually fine with Ellie. Now Addison drives dazed in and out of traffic, pausing for dimmed lights and hurried pedestrians only to look in the review mirror to find every single occupant of the car sleeping, including Kennedy, who has got to be sick by now if she is napping in the car. She exhales deeply as they pull into the parking lot and make their way towards the bustling people leading real lives. Her eyes flit from potential patient to patient, her mind wandering what everyone's story is, if maybe there is someone out there who feels like she does today, if perhaps these people in front of her have lost their lives too. If they are constantly searching to feel normal.

"Addison, what are you doing?" Callie asks from her place behind the sign in desk.

She places Kennedy at Mark's feet while he holds onto Ellie, both waiting semi comatose in the uncomfortable blue chairs ten feet off. "They're sick."

"Are you sick?" She asks cautiously backing away.

"No. They were- while I was out with you last night they got sick. Just Elianna and Mark so far but we're in a hotel and I don't have anything with me and I'm pretty sure that one if not both of them are dehydrated because-"

"Slow it down turbo. First off, you own small children now?" Callie sets her pen down and pensively purses her lips waiting for an explanation.

"They are…were my sister's." She sighs heavily. If only one day she could stop getting that unwanted look from people's eyes she would rest easier. The instant flash of remorse that reminds her of all the reasons why she would rather be somewhere under a fluffy down comforter crying to her heart's content than looking back at someone who is trying their damnedest to empathize. She hates that look.

"Oh, she wasn't married?" She replies quickly and then realizes that the conversation is probably not the best idea she ever had especially given last night.

"He couldn't…" She drags on recalling the broken man on her front steps all those weeks ago. She swallows heavily searching for the words before Callie places a light hand on her forearm.

"I got you. Let's take them into a bay. Yang!" Cristina sticks her head out from a curtain and asks what in the world she wants now. "New patients. Give that guy to one of your interns."

"But this is a potential surgery here, if you would come take a look at his x-rays then I would know for sure-"

"Yang, zip it and get out here. Williams is it?" She asks the squirrelly looking kid in front of her. He nods. "Good Dr. Williams go to Dr. Yang and she will tell you what needs to be done."

Callie turns back to Addison who is watching the whole scene with wide eyes. "What? I have to take the power trips when I can get them. Bailey is out today so I have my old job for the time being."

"Old job?"

"Oh, yeah. I was fired or stepped down, however you want to look at it. These are Miranda's problems now." She spurts forth in an auctioneer's pace.

"Callie-" Addison starts.

"Nope, let's deal with what you've got going on. I'm trying to block it from my memory."

She looks back to Mark, with ruffled hair and dressed in his sweats and old hooded sweatshirt proclaiming some band as the best thing in the world, and grins for the first time in what feels like forever. He's cute even when he's sick and he's hers, for the time being. "I'm sorry Callie…or you know what I mean. I just wish I was a better friend, I kind of-"

"I said don't worry about it. Now symptoms?"

"It's just the stomach flu, I think. I hope. It can't be food poisoning or I would have it too."

"Really because from the looks of it you haven't eaten in weeks."

"I eat." Addison snaps immediately defensive.

"There's a trigger if I've ever seen one." She drops her voice and looks around, "I get it…if you need someone, if you want someone to talk to, I'm here and I come free of charge. Besides I completely owe you for taking me home last night. Heaven only knows what I would have accomplished in that bar and where I would have woken up." She turns back to Addison who looks like she is about ready to jump off the ledge. "Deep breaths." She watches her inhale and exhale slowly grappling with reality.

"I'm good." Addison smiles.

"Uh-huh." Callie taps her pen against the side of the chart impatiently waiting for Cristina to reappear. "You want to go back with them or do you want to go see-"

"I saw Derek last night. He's fine, I'm fine."

"Good motto, taking a page from Grey's book?" Cristina finally appears scowling and snapping her gloves off. "Took you long enough."

"I feed, clothe and house you Torres. I wouldn't be so heavy handed with the assignment stick." She glares.

"You can't cook to save your life, so that would be me feeding you every night and I clothe myself just fine thank you."

"Wait- you live with her?" Addison asks watching as they banter freely between one another.

"Yeah." Callie acknowledges, "It's temporary."

"Temporary my ass, you've been on my couch for months. I don't even think you want to look for an apartment."

"Yeah Yang, I'm all about girls' sorority houses." She quips sarcastically, "I've been busy and you have patients. We'll talk about it later…at home."

"Fine." Cristina looks up at Addison, "What can I help you with Dr. Montgomery?"

"Not me, them." Addison explain pointing to her slouching group.

"You finally try to kill Sloan? He looks like hell." Callie gives a strict warning with a shake of her head and excuses herself to look at Williams' patient as Cristina helps horde the sicklings away.

Behind the drawn curtain Addison sits holding Kennedy against her chest and lightly stroking her back as she sleeps. Mark sits opposite of her with his head in his hands and eyes clenched shut in fear of coming in contact with the stark bright light of the hospital fluorescents overhead. Cristina works silently next to them while Ellie tries to sleep through the whole thing shivering without her blanket and moaning every time she hits a pressure point that elicits too much pain.

"Alright, I want to do a few labs cause you're you and you won't believe me when I say so far it looks like nothing and as a precautionary measure I'd like to get some fluids in her but I believe she'll be fine, bouncing off the walls and screaming again in no time. I'm going to give her some something for the fever, hook her up with a bag- You want one Dr. Sloan?" he shakes his head no as lightly as he can as she continues, "…and take her up and I just suggest you leave her to the sleep she seems quite fond of when I bring her back." Addison nods letting go of Ellie's hand as Cristina briskly whisks her away in a wheelchair and watches as Mark rolls his stool next to the now empty bed resting his head against the crinkling paper.

"How are you doing?" She asks quietly.

Pulling the hood off his head he tries to smile and squints his eyes open. "I'm alright. How you doing?" He gives her a quick wink and pulls the hood back over his head again.

"You're disgusting."

"What?"

"Your sexual advances are even convincing when you can't keep your eyes open."

"I thought you liked it that way." He asks voice muffled as his lips hit the light gray material of the sweatshirt.

"You would think that." She returns and smiles as they fall into an old pattern. "She hasn't cried all morning, think she's sick?" Addison asks laying down the sleeping infant in front of Mark. He brushes his hand over her forehead like it will help and then backs away rummaging through the supplies up against the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"They've got to have an thermometer around here somewhere. I mean she didn't even ask about the baby. Some kind of doctor." He snorts and keeps one hand protectively over Kennedy's stomach as he pulls various things out and places them on the tray.

"Found it." Addison proclaims pulling it from a drawer and following through with the examination. "She's a little warm but she's not throwing up-"

"Yet." Mark reminds her.

"Yet. This…sucks…for lack of a better word." She says quietly as she hears the stifled voices only inches from her behind the all to thin curtain.

"Could be worse?" He asks smoothing the wrinkle in the baby's blanket and wrapping it a little tighter when she begins to squirm.

"I'm running out of ways to think that this whole year could be any worse. I mean I guess I could die, that's be the coup de grâce. Let's see we're jobless, homeless, foster parents, you're all sick, I'm pregnant and nothing feels right. Yeah I'd have to die." She finishes rambling off.

"Don't say that." He growls seriously.

"I was joking." She reminds him and lifts the baby back into her arms before laying her into her carrier for a peaceful nap.

"You never joke anymore and don't say that." He snaps and then stands up. "I'm going to go get some fresh air." He stumbles forward leaving Addison to contemplate what she said wrong.

_**-----**_

After losing Mark to the belly of the beast she decided there was no way she was going to wait inside the hospital thereby being subjected to horrible hospital gossip and infectious diseases in the waiting room. She quickly but hesitantly retreated to the car to wait it out. She kept one eye out looking for the sick guy but to no avail and finally ended up in the car wondering how it is that she never says anything right anymore.

Their relationship used to thrive on snaky comments, elaborate pick up lines, eye popping orgasms and a lunch date here and there. Now, now she wonders why they even bother. All she ever does these days is manage to bring people down. An invisible cloak of misery encases her entire being and no matter how well she manages to veil it in public Mark always has a way of getting under her skin and making her break down. She sees him and wants to cry, wants to be held because he demands to be the stronger of the two which was fine back when she knew it was okay to have someone hold her up every great once in awhile but now she needs so much support everyday that she feels like an immediate burden to everyone around her when all she wants is a sense of normalcy.

It would be one thing for him to pretend everything was fine and go about life, business as usual but he refuses to move past it; refuses to let her move on and really all she wants to do is forget. Forget that she is raising children because someone had to die. Forget that her head says she could have done a damn better job in the operating room. Forget that she would've saved both her sister's life and the baby's no matter the prognosis because that's the type of surgeon she is. She does the impossible or at least she used to. Now she is confined to experiencing parenthood that she wasn't and quite honestly still isn't ready for and dreaming of being able to escape to a land of blissful work and no annoying play time.

To forget would be divine but Addison has never been that kind of lucky.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

"I have a problem." Cristina mutters to Izzie who is presenting leaning against the wall and toying with the strands of her hair in a very annoying manner that makes the black haired resident want to punch something.

"What?" Izzie responds sounding genuinely interested in someone else's issue.

"I need to admit a patient but I don't think it is going to go over very well."

"Since when do you care?" Izzie snorts, "Just do it."

"Ok, I didn't ask what I would do in the situation Barbie; I said I have a problem."

"What's your deal today? Hahn ship you to the pit again?" Izzie smirks and then stops dead in her tracks when Cristina looks like she is about to light something on fire with her eyes. "Ok fine, let's here the whole story. Besides Torres totally hates me and Bailey is gone and I don't even want to know what she is going to assign me to today."

"This never gets repeated to anyone, got it?"

"Fine."

"I have Montgomery's pseudo kid in there, alright? And she is going to be pissed and already looks like she is having the day from hell, not that I give a shit but she still hasn't paid me for babysitting and I would rather not make her mad." Cristina pauses and then decides to stop looking back in the room where Elianna lays contently asleep hooked up to an IV.

"Anything serious?" Izzie asks finally peering into the room.

"I don't think so but I'd rather be here monitoring it than sending her home with someone who looks like she can't take care of herself…and Sloan is sick as a dog too."

"What do you think happened in California?" Izzie asks thoughtfully chewing on the side of her pen cap.

Cristina is not for certain but she got enough of the information to piece together something. However, she isn't a person to broadcast things about others who could end her career. Stupid, slovenly interns are one thing, Dr. Montgomery is another entirely. "Not my problem. You want to tell her? You need something to do before Torres catches you and I want to go track down Hahn and get in on something."

"Yeah, I guess. Why not?" Izzie grabs the chart and begins flipping through. "Where is Addison?"

"I left her in the clinic." She begins to trickle down the hall ecstatic to be away from whatever chaos is going to ensue before she turns around and shouts, "Thanks Izzie!"

Scanning through mindless medical jargon Izzie gives a wave of her hand and sighs, "What have I gotten myself into?"  
_**  
**_

_**-----**_

"Mark!" Derek tries to shout out from his place on the bed. Day five of healing and he officially wants to be put into a coma until pain killers don't have to be disbursed intravenously.

Dragging his feet Mark stands in the doorway with his shoulder slouched forward and his hood still on. "What?"

"Come in." Derek demands.

"I'm sick; you don't want me in there."

"It doesn't matter."

"I'm contagious."

"Well then I'm sure Richard will be happy to know you are wandering around his post-op patients looking like the Unabomber." Derek smirks and then lets his heavy head rest against the fluffy hospital pillows. "Give me a minute. I won't breathe while you are in here."

"Derek, I'm serious man. You don't want this." He's never done well with the whole being sick thing but he knows from past experience he is significantly better about it than Derek ever was. At least in their earlier years when they could afford time off to mope around their apartment congested and coughing he was better. Derek always proclaimed he was dying; Mark just holed up in his room and slept for days at a time.

"Mark, please." He tries earnestly resting his eyes upon his once best friend. "I just need a few minutes to say some things, alright?"

"I don't want to hear it." He groans and then squats down when vertigo begins to set in.

"You should be sleeping."

"No shit." Mark snaps.

"Why are you here?"

"Brought Ellie in to be looked over. I told Addison she was fine but she wanted to do it anyway."

"Addie," he pauses and smiles remembering, "...always does whatever she wants."

"I'm beginning to remember that." Mark gripes and debates the merit of just sliding down to the tile and resting against the cool metal. Originally he was stumbling down the hall in search of medication but now Derek, annoying as he ever was, has disrupted another seemingly easy quest.

"What do you think you are doing with her?" Derek asks suddenly enraged by the idea of Mark and Addison staying together and Addison's proclamation the previous night about him taking her as she was. There's no way Mark is capable of knowing who Addison is, at least not any better than Derek.

"What you should have been doing your whole life." He replies eagerly and unfazed by the notion of a brain to mouth filter.

"I took care of her."

"You forgot." Mark retorts quickly. "All you ever did was forget her…and now, now that we are finally making some progress you want back in the game? Leave her alone Derek, go play with your intern." He closes his eyes again watching the warm glow of the lights through his eyelids and wonders if he should just scoot inside and shut the door so the whole hospital can't hear the conversation. He goes with not caring and extends his long legs fully.

"She said she wants you." Derek admits quietly to the stagnant air above him. It hurts so much more to admit out loud.

"And I want her."

"You stole my wife." He feels the anger reach a boiling point and then breathes deeply.

"You gave her away and she is your ex-wife now."

"She's having my children!"

"Yeah and if I could change that I would but I can't so I'm just going to have to live with it because I would rather deal with your spawn than to not have her at all." Mark rubs at the crease in his forehead caused by tension and mentally pats himself on the back for a job well done thus far in maintaining his temper. Gotta be the illness sedating him.

"You're going to make a horrible father." Derek spews out angrily.

"I'll be better than my father ever was."

"Yeah like that is hard to beat."

Mark stands slowly, grasping at the doorframe for any support that it will give before waltzing into the room and deciding he couldn't give a fuck less if Derek gets this, whatever it is. "You called me in here and presumably not to discuss my father who we both know was less than great. He wasn't your dad, I know that. So what is it that you want?"

"Never mind." Derek sighs completely defeated and beginning to understand that though he may not like the concept of Mark around his children and Mark around his Addison but he damn well better get used to it.

"Just say it Derek. Not like it could damage whatever friendship we don't have right now."

Derek stares to the wall in front of him. His vision lands just about the blinds, focusing on nothing; thinking about everything. He takes a good few minutes and gives in when Mark makes no attempt to leave due to lack of conversation. "I just wanted to tell you to take care of her." He whispers softly and looking physically pained by the whole idea. There's no reply so he pushes on. "I've been left with my thoughts and a ridiculous amount of pain killers that I keep refusing and they keep administering for too many days and I don't know…just I don't want to see her hurt anymore. I guess I feel like I am responsible for enough of that in her life and she shouldn't have to take it anymore."

"Yeah."

"How's she doing? Really because she's always Addison around me and not saying anything too revealing or taking it all back and always shifting three steps in reverse, you know?"

"Yeah." Mark stops forgetting he was asked a question and drifts off into space again.

"She okay?"

"No. But I think she will be. I think she could be."

"Well, we all could be okay Mark. When did you go and get all optimistic on me? You've had too much sun...good thing you are moving back." Derek mutters fiddling with the tubing attached to his arm.

"Moving back?" Mark chokes out.

"Addison said…oh she didn't mention it."

"No." He attempts to glare and fails.

"Surprise." Derek spews mindlessly. He fixes his eyes back on the blinds willing the pain in his leg to just die already. Perhaps they should have cut it off because from the looks of it he is going to be limping around for quite sometime. "Hey Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"I just…I want you to know…" Derek flips his head over on the pillow to face the man in the corner tugging on the sweatshirt that's a little too small and from the looks of it might actually be Derek's from back in the day. "…I was going to say before; when I stopped you in the hall…I want…there isn't anyone else I'd pick but you." He finally says voice faltering full of the emotion he's been trying so hard to hide. Car crashes tend to put things into perspective and it hurts like hell. Better to learn now than never.

Mark furrows his brow together and thinks for a brief second before completely understanding, "Thanks."

"If you screw this up- I will be the first one at your head with a gun."

"You think I don't know that?"

"You don't deserve her."

"Neither do you."

"About the kids-"

Mark cuts him short feeling his head wobble and his stomach churn with the need for something. "We can discuss that another time, I need to get back."

"Promise me, that if something happens to me-"

"Don't talk like that." Mark snipes immediately. He may not be the guy's biggest fan anymore but he is still his brother, regardless of the Addison situation and there is this part of him that is absolutely terrified for what could have been in that accident last week. He can't lose his companion, his one friend since grade school to something as reckless as a drunk driver on a highway. This is his family. Laid up in a hospital bed and falling apart at every turn of the corner, those two are all he has.

"Promise me," Derek reiterates, "That if anything happens to me that you will always take care of Addie and the kids. Promise me you want pull some jackass move and walk away, just promise that you'll be there when I can't anymore."

It's so easy, he's been doing it for years but the fear in Derek's voice, the startling compassion in his eyes is frightening enough to drop the charade and answer honestly, if only for this once. "I promise that I will never intentionally hurt any one of them."

"Ok. That's all I need." Derek replies.

"All you need for what?" Mark eyes him wearily finally lifting the hood from his head and taking a good look at the discolored bruises and bandages that literally line his friend from head to toe.

"It's just all I need." He smiles and closes his eyes lightly before waving Mark off, "Besides a nap."

"Yeah. Ok. Bye Derek."

"Bye Mark."

He saunters from the room in search of medicine with an odd cloud looming overhead. He chalks it up the overly weird and personal conversation that just happened but can't help but wonder what in the world Derek has been thinking and when the fuck Addison agreed to move back. They need to talk and they needed to do it yesterday.

It always seems to be something with her. Work, illness, pregnancy, death and they just don't connect unless absolutely necessary and he isn't entirely certain he can keep the promise he just made. Because Addison isn't Addison. She's a walking former shell of a life that was once so full and bright that he hated her on principle alone. Now all they have holding them together is an agreement for her to start therapy. It's 1 p.m. and it already feels like the longest day under the history of the sun.

How can he commit to something that barely exists?

**_-----_**

Izzie finally finds her napping in a blue car out in the parking lot. After scouring the clinic she got word from one of the nurses that Addison had taken herself outside and from there she has plainly been walking the lines of red, green, black and silver vehicles that occupy every row.

She taps on the partially rolled down window stirring what would have once been her mentor. Instead of rolling down the window completely Addison gently nudges the Izzie's knee with the door causing her to step back. "Dr. Stevens, hello again."

"Hi." She says cheerfully, possibly too cheerfully for someone who has just woken up. She grimaces. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"No, it's fine. I don't even remember falling asleep so it's a good thing someone did before something happened." Addison smiles warmly; convincingly.

"I wanted to let you know that I've admitted Ellie for observation overnight."

"I thought Dr. Yang-"

"She was pulled away and I was her replacement. Anyway if you want to look at the results or anything just swing by, she's asleep right now but the fever's coming down so that's good and from what we can tell she's just a touch dehydrated so…" Izzie drawls out. She has no finishing line and kind of wishes Addison would nod or something at least.

Eventually, after an awkward pause she reaches for the sleeping infant in the passenger seat and proclaims, "Well we may as well keep an eye on this one too. She's been asleep most of the day and all afternoon, that can't be anything good, knowing her."

"We can go check her out right now, I don't have anything else. Do you want, I mean we could move you all to one room so that way you would at least have a couch, I know it sounds a little ridiculous-"

"You're doing your job and I'm a touch over protective, Dr. Stevens. It's just good practice…I understand, I still get it." She assures her and runs a few fingers over Kennedy's flushed cheeks.

"Ok. Let's go." Izzie swings the door wide and gently takes the carrier from Addison so she can grab her purse. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Not sick?"

"Not yet. Give me some time, it's bound to happen." Addison assures her and watches as her pointy toed heels splash into the warm puddles on the pavement. She feels the water bounce up and hit her legs trickling down in a disturbing pattern. It's all reminiscent of the night before where she let the cool liquid drench her to the core and felt numb before finding her relief. Today she feels displaced, anxious and uncomfortable about the future.

"Maybe not, you never know." Izzie shrugs blazing a trail through the sliding doors and past the waiting room toward the elevators.

Addison bites her tongue from saying something completely inappropriate and true so that they are riding encased by the gurgling silence of the heavy elevator while it slowly climbs. She blinks and taps her toe unknowingly impatient. "Have you seen Dr. Sloan?"

"I haven't but then again I've been in the clinic looking for you. I'm sure he's around somewhere."

"Yeah." She agrees but can't help but think he's disappeared again.

**_-----_**

"Found you." He proclaims quietly seeing Addison with her hands buried in her sleeves, staring off into space and watching over the two red heads next to her.

"Yup." She keeps her face forward monitoring the light sounds of the heart monitor that Izzie demanded stay on no matter how pointless.

"So?" He stumbles forward and takes a seat next to her reminding himself to not try and take her hand or touch her. He doesn't want to push his boundaries, at least not when he isn't well enough to fight back.

"They're admitted. You should be sleeping, if you want to take the car back to hotel then they keys are in my purse over there." She raises an arm and lightly flails it in the direction of said bag and various other articles of clothing and baby things.

"I don't want to leave you."

"I'm fine." She says as an afterthought.

"Oh, I know." He lets his head fall back and closes his eyes once again deciding that he should wait until they are in private because having her dirty laundry aired through the hospital corridors is not something Addison takes lightly to.

They fall silent sitting mere inches from one another. The light bustle through the hallways occupies the distant air and serves as a soothing background for sleep among the three sickened individuals. She watches long after he's drifted off. Dares to reach up and run a few fingers through his graying hair, lightly brushes the skin on the back of his hand and remembers back when it all wasn't so complicated, well at least as uncomplicated as they get. Her head falls to a rest on his shoulder and before she can contemplate one more memory she is consumed by the sleep that has beckoned her name for months.  
**  
**

**-----**

"Aw, they are all so cute." Izzie states swirling a piece of black licorice around as she Cristina and Meredith congregate outside of room 462A.

"They aren't cute, they're disgusting." Cristina clarifies watching as Addison subconsciously snuggles deeper into Mark's neck in an attempt to get more comfortable while sleeping sitting up.

"I told Derek to go to hell." Meredith announces to the rest of the group.

"Good for you." Cristina immediately replies when Izzie's head tips in empathy.

"You okay Mere?" The blonde asks watching Meredith's struggle for resolve.

"Great. Fan-freaking-tastic. I finally get the guy and he still wants her, only problem is she wants that one…" she points to Mark, "…and she always wins. Always, I mean there is no way Addison is going to take him back and yet he feels it necessary to hold out hope for some fucking reas- oh, oh-" Her eyes light up in connection.

"What?" Cristina asks not taking her eyes from the chart in front of her.

"Derek wants Addison back…Derek wants Addison back and Addison is- Oh that bastard." She growls.

"Um, Mere? Not. Following." Izzie nudges her in the shoulder when it appears she has stopped breathing.

"I wonder if Mark knows. He would have to know but then, why would he- why would anyone…and that's why Bailey said-" She continues rambling off.

"She's officially gone off the deep end." Cristina proclaims snapping the chart closed and sliding it back in with the rest.

"She's in like a trance. Meredith?" Izzie waves a hand in front of her face, snaps her fingers and finally her eyes readjust and come back into focus.

She blinks hard letting the swirling colors refocus, "I'm going to kill him." She promptly turns on her converse heel and stomps down the hall.

"Calling not it on damage control, I need to be in the OR in thirty minutes." Cristina asserts and walks in the other direction.

"Great Cristina, way to be helpful." As she drops her notes to follow Meredith she feels a cool hand on her forearm and turns to see Addison. "Dr. Montgomery?"'

"I think we are going to need another bed for the night…or just another room. You can put Mark and I together or something but I need…I need to go throw up actually." She says softly and then quickly dashes away.

"I'm never going to get home tonight." Izzie mutters to the nurse behind the desk and reaches behind the counter to do a little room shuffling.

**_-----_**

"I was sleeping Stevens at my home. This better be damn good." Miranda snaps as she trails behind Izzie before coming to a rest standing in front of one closed intimidating door. Izzie holds out a mask, which is reluctantly taken while pulling hers up from her neck and securing it. She slowly pushes into the room followed by Bailey.

Miranda looks at Mark and Addison curled up in one bed next to the child they seem to be frequently seen with and realizes that she couldn't care less. "What the hell do you need me for? They're all sleeping, I don't know why they're sleeping on hospital property but-"

"She said she wanted you. I didn't know what to do so I let them stay. She said it was this or a hotel and I figured that it would be better for them to at least be semi comfortable." Izzie shrugs.

"She wanted me? She's asleep and presumably fine, no?"

"Just some stomach bug from what I can tell but she said to get you. I was following orders." Izzie hands over the one chart and skips free from the room leaving Miranda to handle things.

"Ruin my whole damn day off-"

"Miranda?" Addison croaks dragging her eyes open. When this thing hits, it hits hard and she has been between vomiting and sleeping for close to three hours.

"Hey there. You should to sleep, get some rest. I'll just check on her-"

"Ellie." Addison corrects halfheartedly watching the other woman dig in her pocket for a pen.

"Right, Ellie, and then I will be out of your hair."

"They took Kennedy."

"Well I'll find out wherever it is and have a look too, alright? What is a Kennedy?"

"Baby." Addison mutters and squirms away when Mark drapes his arm over her waist. Aside from the general dislike of being touched now she can't bear the thought of any weight crushing her organs while they are busy roiling.

"Ok. How are you feeling while I'm at it?"

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, your face just screams, "fine"." Miranda mocks before scribbling a few things down and heading toward the door. "Fluids and sleep. Doctor's orders and if you don't I'll find the intern with the flimsiest hands to start your IV. Also, I don't want to see you wandering the halls, got it? You're under my care and there will be hell to pay if anyone of you leaves this room without permission. Understood?" She flips the switch, trying to balance her friendship and the surgeon's side of her brain. Tough love time.

"Understood." Addison shivers but scoots away when Mark grabs at her again.

"Mark!" Miranda snaps.

"Understood." He mutters and waits to hear the door click shut. With a cooling rush of wind and a slight creak she is gone. "Addie?"

"Hmm?"

"Let me hold you, you're cold and I'm burning up. It's a good balance."

"No."

"But I need something to…snuggle or I can't sleep." He pouts.

"You slept just fine earlier." She retorts and pulls the stupid flimsy blanket higher around her shoulders.

"Please?" He asks weakly and she cautiously flips over to face him in their small area and tucks her head under his chin.

"Hands to yourself and I can't promise I won't throw up on you." She rambles off as he strokes her hair.

"Deal."  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

As day turned to dusk and dusk to pure darkness with the exception of the flitting noisy machinery Ellie napped peacefully, awakening once and too confounded and groggy to understand where she was. When she sniffled and rolled over to see Mark stretched out next to her and her Aunt lying across his chest she closed her eyes once again and rested. Addison and Mark, however, spent the remaining night hours fighting for leg room and pillows and he very nearly was puked on. Fortunately for him she managed to swing her legs out and stumble the two whole feet to the bathroom in the nick of time. Waking up to vomit is always unpleasant and disorienting and she was about two seconds from just curling into a ball and sleeping on the hard floor when he called her back to bed and proclaimed that she would be mighty sorry and cold if she continued with her course of action.

When the light gleamed brightly through the slits of the blinds covering the windows the next day the four residents and one repeat intern stood in the opened doorway and watched them sleep peacefully while taking bets on why they were there. Meredith was fuming from her showdown with Derek, in which she promptly confronted him about Addison's pregnancy and was met with the fact that they "accidentally" slept together before she left town and they are indeed his kids (he said it with a shit eating grin that made her want to slap him). How one "accidentally" has sex with their ex-wife while seemingly working on things with their girlfriend she is unsure but she sure as hell is pissed and can't talk about it for fear of Bailey burying her alive.

Izzie puts twenty down on them solely coming back for Derek and that the kids belong to a distant relative that needed a babysitter. Alex says there's some sort of ménage-à-trois with Derek, Mark and Addison and that the kids are actually hers from another marriage because they all look so alike and Cristina keeps her opinions to herself holding the money in the right side of her scrubs for safe keeping until a winner can clearly be called. Eventually Bailey breaks them all up and they scatter like live crickets being set in a warmed cage for feeding time.

"Alright up and at em." Miranda announces brightly flipping the light to the dimmed room on.

"Oh fuck Bailey." Mark groans clenching his eyes shut and offering up the arm he isn't laying on to cover Addison's before she can react.

"Hello?" Ellie asks sitting up and looking particularly bouncy.

"Hello." Miranda replies warmly.

"Where am I?" She looks around trying to find something familiar, something to place because the last thing she remembers well was falling asleep in the hotel the night before.

"The hospital."

Her eyes widen in fear and she cracks her mouth open, "Hospital."

"Now you've done it." Mark grumbles and nudges Addison.

"Go away Mark."

"We're going to have a situation in about twenty seconds." He replies and gently shakes her arm. He never thought waking up in such close proximity to Addison would feel so unfulfilling.

"Don't care." She mumbles and buries her pounding head further into the pillow.

"Am I dying?" Ellie asks on the brink of tears, memories flooding in like a flash storm. People go into hospitals and they don't come back and that's sort of all she needs to know.

"No you aren't dying." Mark states gruffly like it is the most obvious thing in the world and rolls his eyes when Addison refuses to participate.

"People don't always die in hospitals." Miranda proclaims taking a seat on the edge of Ellie's bed and trying to be comforting.

"Actually-" Mark pipes up.

"Shut it Sloan."

"It's your funeral." He interjects and settles back under the covers to watch the scene unfold.

"Mommy did." Elianna replies earnestly.

"Oh…"

"Yeah." Mark proclaims, the proud victor of something he doesn't know, but it feels good to be right for once.

"Well not everyone dies when they go to hospitals. Hospitals are just places where people go when they don't feel good and then doctors like me and your…your-"

"Aunt." Mark chimes in again.

"Right your Aunt Addison and Mark make people feel better. So you were sick-"

"My tummy was sick." She clarifies like it makes a difference.

"Right, you were sick and then Aunt Addison brought you here to get better and let's see…" She drops off doing a quick physical exam, "…you look better, do you feel better?"

"Yes I do and so does my tummy." She grins.

"Well then my work here is done."

"Mark?" Elianna asks suddenly very aware of the fact that she is sitting alone on a bed with a stranger in a place not as bad as previously thought.

"Yeah kid?"

"I want Addie."

He shuffles to the floor griping and lifts the small girl to fill his still warm void onto the bed. He watches as she wiggles her way under covers and into Addison's unknowing arms and then suddenly flips back around to Mark. "What?"

"When I get sick Mommy gives me ice cream when I don't feel bad no more."

"Ok." He wipes the crusted sleep from his eyes and yawns loudly realizing he feels significantly better as well and is desperate need of a change of clothes from his rumpled gross sweats.

"I'll take her." Miranda offers.

"No, it's ok. I can do it."

"I got it, you go shower before you start to smell up the entire room."

"Gee thanks." He offers with an eye roll and heads into the bathroom.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**

One small adventure in the cafeteria later (resulting in ice cream in her own hair as well as the child's), Miranda quickly returned the better than new Ellie to Mark and assured him that she was absolutely fine and in need of a companion and something to fill her time with. He bent over, kissed Addison's sleeping cheek and announced that he and Ellie were going to go take a field trip to check on Kennedy. She waved them off with a grumble about being too loud and to not come back until they learned how to shut up, which left Mark explaining why Aunt Addison was so cranky to the energetic child in the hospital gown in front of him. He, on the other hand, was not back completely to 100 and almost resented her ability to run down the halls when he couldn't lift his feet fast enough for her liking.

After a fun round of verifying that said infant was not fairing as well as the other members of the dysfunctional family he decided to keep the information to himself and retrieved the keys from Addison's purse intent on going back to the hotel for more clothes. He horded the bubbly girl into the car amidst a plethora of asinine questions about what hospitals do behind that door or behind that curtain or what that instrument does or why that guy was here and how was he sick. He almost liked it better when she deathly terrified of the place and screaming. At least then he didn't have to answer everything with a, "I don't know." to be matched with a serious frown and pout.

Upon returning to the hospital he pawned Elianna off on Dr. Karev, handing him a few crumpled dollar bills and instructing him to keep the child the hell away from him for a few hours so he could sleep and recharge. Slowly he wanders the halls back up to the small room where they have isolated Kennedy and takes a seat in the rocking chair meant for mothers. He knows enough to understand the differences in high fevers among adults and children and how detrimental they can prove to be in infants. He watches her fuss and scream unsure as to whether or not he should touch her and finally settles on giving her his finger and speaking in a low voice. He checks the hallway and glances around the room to make sure no one is hiding behind things and recording this to use as blackmail later. He talks sports for a brief second but since it is almost the end of October things are winding down for his team in baseball land and then he gradually begins talking about Addison and all of their relationship problems. He watches her wiggle around angrily and understandably so he stands up to maintain eye contact and grins warmly when she settles down and begins "listening" again, not that she can escape the room if she wanted to.

He tells her about how much he loves Addison, how he always has since he can't even remember when, tells her about the times in New York and Seattle and how eventually he decided to follow her down to California citing personal growth. He states a few of their problems from how he wants to be better than Derek and feels completely undeserving to how the Aunt she just met is not the Aunt he knows is hiding under her prickly shell. He explains that he isn't really good with kids and hates when they scream but thinks he could be better at it for Addison if she would at least let him try instead of deciding that he fails at life and shouldn't be allowed to even baby-sit for a few hours. And, albeit moronically, he feels relieved; feels pleased with his ability to convey the situation to an unwilling conversationalist. It's not like he'll ever say this to anyone who can talk.

Before leaving, he lightly strokes the top of her hat covered head and tells her she isn't allowed to die because they can not handle that right now. He pauses in the doorway smiling warmly, as a nurse brushes by him to check on the now sleepy calmed baby, and realizes that even though nothing is going according to his non-existent plan he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

He's not going to bring up her decision to stay. She'll get to it eventually.

**_-----_**

For safety's sake Addison was held one more day and when Miranda walked in on her yelling at an intern to get the out of her room and to stop poking her while she was trying to sleep, she decided she was well enough to go home and bitch at Mark. Being the hospital protocol whore Miranda enforced the wheelchair ride and sort of enjoyed the way Addison rolled her eyes the entire way.

The ride "home" is quiet and filled with an old alternative rock station because Mark is driving. Tension suddenly replaces the void when Addison flips around to see one missing child.

"Mark?"

"Yeah." He hums not lifting his tone from the chorus of the annoying song.

"Where is Kennedy?" She whispers, trying not to alarm Ellie, and trying not to cry when she realizes that she has gone two whole days without seeing the infant that has been entrusted to her care.

"Who?" He asks trying not to smile.

"Mark!"

"Fine, calm down." His head sways to the tune and he drums his fingers along the steering wheel. "She's still at the hospital."

"Oh God she was sick. She was and I didn't even notice when we left without her." Her breathing increases as her heart thumps along accordingly.

"She's gonna be fine. Doing much better now, they just want to keep her for one more day and then we can have her and her powerful little lungs back."

"Ok." Addison whispers well below the song now blaring through the speakers as they merge on the freeway in the middle of a downpour. Traffic creeps and she makes a mental note not to talk anymore. He plays along for about ten minutes but when they begin to slow down again he looks over at her trembling figure. She's not crying, she's doing a good job with that, but there is something noticeably wrong.

He reaches out for her hand and tightly laces his fingers through hers. "She's fine." He reiterates.

"I'm so bad at this. I'm not supposed to be, I work with babies all the time and now, now I can't even keep track of one simple thing."

"You aren't."

"I like this song!" Elianna shouts from the backseat and urges Mark to turn it up a little more which suits him just fine as the need to talk Addison through a potential breakdown emerges.

"I just thought I'd be better, you know? At all of it and I'm just not a mom, I guess." She admits growing fidgety and pulling out her phone to distract herself with.

"Addison, it's not you. It's the situation."

"I guess."

"You're going to be great and I'm going to be right here with you. I'll make you look good." He smirks and watches for the smile that never comes. Apparently it is straight back to the land of doom for the day.

"You're already better than me." And it's not that she doesn't take well to being second place, which she kind of doesn't but that isn't the point. The point is that she completely managed to forget about another human being and that is so unlike her that she is completely bewildered and scared of what she will do with her own children. From leaving them in a grocery store or forgetting about their school functions. She doesn't want to be the mom who just hands her kid cash instead of a lunch or the type that shows up in the last quarter of a game and cheers on the wrong child. She jumps when the phone that she is cradling trills relentlessly. She answers and receives news that she'd rather not hear before looking to Mark and telling him to turn around because they need to go back to the hospital immediately.

**_-----_**

They arrive under the confused puff of doubt and Mark hoists Elianna onto his back in favor of having her trailing at their feet and slowing them down. She embraces the notion of a piggy back ride by nearly strangling him as they ride the elevator up.

"Did he say-"

"He didn't say anything. Stop asking…please." Addison begs as she jabs at the bright numbers again.

"Ok. Hey Add?"

"Hmm?"

He slowly hooks a finger under her chin and presses a warm kiss to her lips giving her enough time to pull back if she wants, but she remains steadfast and reciprocates until Ellie shouts an, "Ew!" and they pull back sheepishly.

"What was that for?" Addison asks putting weight on the toe of the matching black heels Mark brought for her to wear. He was always better at picking shoes than Derek.

"I just want to remind you that I'm here."

"Ok."

"It's gonna be okay." He says it now for her but because he needs to believe it. Nothing else can go wrong.

"You don't know that." She proclaims as the doors ding and slide open and they shuffle down the hall.

He stops them just short of the room with all of the beeping machines and frantic staff attempting to get Derek stabilized. He lightly grabs her arm and pulls her in close. "If-"

"Don't." She states with watery eyes looking past him into the room.

"I'm just saying if, if anything happens. I've got you, ok? Whatever happens I'm right behind you. Wobbly, a bit scared but here." He shakes his head and refuses to turn around to watch what's happening to his once best friend. If he's dying in there he can't watch and if he's trying to die Mark would just as soon jump off a cliff with him but now's not the time to freak out. He'll save that for later, if necessary.

Addison doesn't answer but smiles genuinely before slipping by him to meet Richard. Mark slouches before lifting Ellie's legs higher onto his back while she tries to braid his short hair and pulls out his cell phone. He dials quickly and waits for the inevitable and unmistakable tone.

"Naomi? I think we're going to need you."

**_-----_**

* * *


	28. Losing you to you

A/N: Moderate research went into this but I'm no medical genius...so just roll with me here. And thanks to **escapismrocks** for the betaing.

**_-----_**  
**_Losing you to you_**  
_- Hammock_  
**_-----_**

Sometimes they hate being doctors. Sometimes, like when hearing medical jargon rolling off of someone's lips in passing, they really wish that they couldn't decipher the hidden code meant to leave unknowing civilians in the dark. The times, like now, when Addison has a death grip on Derek's falsely warm right hand and is listening but not hearing everything that Richard is saying about a blood vessel bursting and a possibly irreversible coma.

He gives her a pained expression and excuses himself to review the tests that they just took thirty minutes ago yet again. And then it's them and the role is reversed and she's holding Derek instead of Derek holding her and nothing is right. Everything's shifted again, as she was firmly trying to plant her feet in knowing what was right and she can't walk away now, even if she wanted to.

She releases her hand just a little when it begins to tingle giving fair warning to cramping and she realizes that her hold was too tight. She strokes the back of his hand, the hand that used to curl around her waist and the one that would brush hair out of her eyes and though she isn't in love with him anymore, Addison will always love Derek and that's just the way life is. It's a universal fact that can't be destroyed by their bickering, horrible tempers, passive aggressive mannerisms or whatever else the world feels like throwing at them. For better or worse it will always be Addison and Derek even when Addison and Derek no longer legally share anything and Mark gets that. He's able to step back from the situation for a second and understand that he's no Derek and he will never be that to her. Unfortunately, that understanding and the slight guilt that still eats away at his mind don't mesh and all he can think is that he inadvertently is responsible for everything.

The breaking up of a marriage, the ending of an era, the loss of his best friend, the loss of his lover, the loss of his home…it's all on him, at least momentarily. Sure they all played a role and everyone was taken advantage of and everyone got hurt but that is no longer important. Under the bright hallway lights with Elianna still clinging to his exhausted shoulders and tugging on his hair the only thing that counts is the simple fact that if he would've stopped himself, stopped her that one significant year ago they would all be living unhappily ever after in New York. As he peers through the blinds hesitantly to watch Addison struggle for decorum and posture he isn't sure which ending is worse. All he ever does is watch her hurt and it feels never ending.

When do they catch a break?

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"Come on, come on, come on." Mark chants over and over tapping his foot on the floor. He slouches over further in his chair and looks at Elianna who is happily coloring in something Bailey gave her about an hour ago.

"Dr. Sloan?" George O'Malley's voice cracks giving way to his nervousness.

"O'Malley." He asserts and then stands jamming his fingers into his pockets.

"I-…we, the chief thinks…" He stops himself and takes a deep breath cursing everyone for treating him like a resident and yet still dogging him about the intern title. He's doing all the work for zero recognition these days. He forces the file forward and waits. "Here."

Mark flips through it, finding what he doesn't want, shuffles the papers back into order and then hands it back with a sigh. He resumes his position in the chair and picks up the annoying jiggling of his left leg. It's a twitch or a click or whatever…he doesn't bother stopping it, it always happens when things are going badly.

"Dr. Sloan?"

"Yeah." Mark replies quietly and then nearly chokes trying to clear his throat in an effort to sound more masculine.

"I'm sorry."

"Aren't we all…" He flips back around and watches Elianna trace the black bold outline of a bear with a deep red crayon. What he would give to find joy in coloring right now.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"Take this." Mark begs as Alex stands next to him sipping on his lukewarm coffee.

"No thanks, I'm with Hahn today." He pulls the flimsy plastic lid off and pours an endless amount of sugar into the black mud hoping to have some effect on the taste.

"I'm not asking. I'm ordering." Mark releases Ellie's hand while she looks up at him precariously.

"And I'm saying no." Alex turns on his heel and then stops mentally slapping himself as his feet come to a halt on the tile. "Fine!" He shouts over his shoulder and Mark pushes the small girl in light jeans forward.

"Go play with Dr. Karev Elianna."

"I don't want to." She stamps her feet and crosses her arms not understanding that this is not the time and furthermore not understanding why in the world they are still at the hospital.

"I'm not asking you. I'm telling you to go with Dr. Karev now!" Mark raises his voice and tears fill her eyes. Alex saunters backwards and grabs her hand.

"You're an ass Sloan."

"Fuck off Karev." He calls back angrily.

"You can't take it out on everyone else." Alex warns and drifts around the hall leaving Mark to contemplate on how to move forward.

"I don't like you." Ellie purses her mouth and sets her eyes above her to the tall man in a white coat.

"And I don't much care for you. Now let's go find Izzie. She knows what to do with this crap."

"Who is Izzie?"

"Another doctor."

"I don't know her." She shakes her head and then lifts her feet when he starts to walk away alone.

"Well, you don't know everyone here so that makes sense."

"I'm not supposed to play with strangers."

"Oh come on kid, get off my case. I didn't ask for this shit." Alex mutters grabbing her wrist and practically pulling her into the elevator.

"You're hurting me!" She shouts wrenching her arm free once they've safely maneuvered inside.

The other occupants, wearing varying colors of scrubs all turn to the red faced resident and glare. "Helpful kid, real helpful."

"My name is not kid!"

"Oh really." He challenges childishly.

"My name is Elianna stupid." She shimmies into the wall of the elevator when the short nurse with blond hair vacates with the rest of the group.

"Name calling, very grown up." Alex mocks and then looks around the now empty metal container. "Look, I don't like you and you don't like me but we're stuck together. I have to work so you're just going to have to hang out with me, and under no circumstances do you touch anything, understood?"

"I want Addie."

"Well apparently she doesn't want you right now." He mouths off and then abruptly halts when her face contorts and begins to look oddly enough that he is frightened and horrified that she may start to scream in tantrum.

He gets off the elevator without her and she dashes out when the doors start to close again and she is too afraid to keep riding alone. She'd rather be with someone she doesn't like than with no one at all. She saw this guy with her Addie once before talking and she takes his word on her aunt having no interest in her again. Her untied shoelaces slap the tile and click as she scuffs her feet along behind him in silent protest of whatever she is about to endure.

She wants to go home and she wanted to do it yesterday.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
She's watching Mark watch her. She's watching Mark watch Derek. She's watching Mark pace the floor wringing his hands and she finally decides to break the silence. "Maybe-"

"No Addison." He growls and continues on his path to nowhere.

"Richard said-"

"No."

"We'll we can't-" Her own voice breaking stops the flow of the ineloquent sentence and she feels the tears building as she takes a deep breath.

"We have to." He demands.

The thing is that they're both insanely head strong. The problem is Mark has known Derek forever. The issue is that Addison's still got the power to sign his life away. So he paces and tries to think of way to tell her that there is no way Derek would want to be kept alive for nothing and she sits in the chair trying not cry and figuring out a way to tell Mark that she can't let him go even if she is the one with the pen.

"I don't want to."

"He's already gone, look at the damn charts they keep shoving under your nose and use that pretty little head of yours sweetheart." He snorts and knows that the anger isn't going to get him anywhere but it certainly doesn't make the situation hurt more so it works.

"Mark don't." She warns. She's seen him fly off the handle about three times and none of it ends well. They may not be in the best position but he gave his word that he would be there for her and she hates to think it was as hollow and meaningless as everything else he has said to her over the years.

"We can't do this Addison. We can't just sit in here for the next week praying for a miracle."

"They happen sometimes and we don't-"

"You're a doctor or at least you used to be. Don't get optimistic on me, it isn't becoming."

It's like some sort of sick joke. Addison being given the power to ultimately terminate Derek's life…in a roundabout way. They have another half day of tests to confirm brain death and then the ball is in her court. She's read every chart that they've thrown down and she's half tempted to throw one at Mark's head. "I can do whatever I want."

"Yeah you would get off on this sort of power trip."

"Mark!"

"What!"

"Stop it." She stands still wobbly from the ridiculous flu that she contracted a few days back puts herself directly in his invisible line.

"Get out of my way."

"You aren't going anywhere. Look at me. Mark, look at me." She begs and he tilts his head just far enough down to keep looking over her shoulder and at the same time still give off the elusion that he is making eye contact. This is too much. This is Derek pinning Addison against him when they were supposed to be a team and he can't look at her and see that hurt expression again without wanting to jump off the roof. "We aren't going to fight about this yet. Not until we know everything, okay?"

"Fine. I'm going out." He swings his jacket over his shoulders and slowly draws the zipper up daring her to break. As the notches fit together and grind she finally throws her hands into the air and his anger is vindicated by hers.

"You can't leave."

"Watch me."

"You said! You said Mark that you would be here for me…and you need to be here for me and for Derek…you can't leave him now!" She watches him sway to the door and feels her skin begin to seethe under all of the rippling sadness. "You bastard. Go; go do what you do best. Go get drunk and screw every woman in this town because you can't fix this. Go!"

He turns so quickly that's he thinks she is about to be slapped and cringes in anticipation. "Maybe I will."

"Good." She replies bitterly biting the inside of her cheek and waiting for the sweet taste of blood to rush over her taste buds.

"Fine then." He slams the door on the way out and she waits until the black leather on his back has completely disappeared before she draws the blinds and crumples into a sobbing heap below the dark window.  
**_  
_**

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"Please Izzie, I'm practically begging here. Two hours." He reaches into his pocket and she bats his hand away.

"I'm not sleeping with you; keep your condom to yourself." She retorts.

"You wish," he grins and then looks up at her braided blonde hair, the hair he used to smell before drifting off to sleep, "…besides you are shacked up with O'Malley now."

"Was shacked up and don't pretend like you don't know. The whole freakin' hospital knows so just shut up about it."

Ellie watches the exchange from her spot a few below remembering Izzie from the night they arrived and trying to commit her name to memory. She watches people push other people down the hall on beds like they are in some race and she sees other people playing in wheelchairs. Quietly, not that anyone is paying attention, she slips out of their sight and decides to find her Addison on her own since no one is willing to help. Using her best sneaking pose she tip toes down the hall recollecting about how her mommy taught her how to do that down the hall to her bedroom in anticipation of the new baby.

She can't for the life of her understand why people would want a baby but reminds herself what everyone keeps telling her, that she was once one too. She sees the shiny doors of the elevator and waits with her head up, assuming the role of a very small person who knows what they are doing in a very large place.

"Alex?" Izzie asks looking to her knees where the curly headed child once was.

"What?"

"She's gone."

Alex darts his head around and spins completely eliminating the surrounding vicinity as an option. "Great, fucking great. Help me, don't just stand there."

She huffs but drops her pen onto the counter and twists the knob of the closest door revealing a very old man in need of a change and no child. "I hate you for involving me in this. Montgomery is going to skin you." She shouts at Alex who is already halfway down the hall in search.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
He hadn't meant to throw his fit in the general direction of the only person in this town that he still likes but it kind of happened that way and he said too many horrible things to go back and grovel at Addison's nine hundred dollar shoes so he just downs a few more shots at Joe's and then rests his head up against the bar counter while the people's voices around him mix together in uneven tones and blurry colors.

"Dr. Sloan?" Meredith asks pushing at his elbow.

"Grey." He acknowledges without lifting his head.

"So it's true?"

"What's true?"

"Derek?"

"Yeah." He flips his cheek onto his forearm and almost pouts wishing that he was a four year old and that ice cream would make everything better.

"I didn't work today and I…" Her voice slips and the tears fall freely as she nurses her drink. "The last thing I said to him-"

"Doesn't matter Grey."

"What if I-"

"You didn't." He retorts quickly. He doesn't want a girl flip out from anyone.

"I could've. He was there and I should have kept my mouth shut. He wants Addison and I just had to let him have it. I had to rip into him one more time so he wouldn't forget me, you know?"

"Whatever." He rolls his face away from her and taps the bar for a refill. Sooner or later he'll either beat the shit out of someone and get kicked out, get too drunk to function and get kicked out or end up fucking a nurse in the bathroom, get caught and then get kicked out. He doesn't know which one it will be today.

"I just wish-"

"It's useless to wish for things Grey, why haven't you learned that yet?"

Meredith falls silent, brushing the dried tear stains off her cheekbones and watches as Mark squirms in the dim lighting. She places an arm around his shoulder to comfort him because she certainly isn't saying the right things and before they can stop themselves Mark has Meredith pinned against the counter sucking on her neck and she is brushing up against the zipper of his jeans. Joe services a grumbling of a warning and Mark stumbles backwards grabbing the blonde's hand and leading her towards the door.

He fumbles with the handle of the third floor on call room after deciding, through a very fuzzy brain, that taking Meredith back to the hotel was not an option. He pulls his shirt overhead and plays with the silver button on her pants before deftly plucking it through the small hole but not unzipping anything. Instead he moves his hands under her shirt and unclasps her bra pulling all of the offending material over her head and down her arms.

There is no choice here. This is Mark. This is what Mark does. It's his MO and he has been working a damn long time at it so why change now. He pushes all the pain below and commiserates the only way he knows how- by not dealing. This is what Meredith does- life gets hard and she sleeps with inappropriate men and Mark is the most inappropriate so it feels strangely right. He cups the back of her head and swirls his tongue around hers as they seek out the comfort that no one can give. It's not about the sex; it isn't about the other person. It's about doing something when their collective world is tumbling down. They are doers. He guides her to the bed and settles himself on top of her as the door cracks open and a flash of blue comes into view.

"Naomi?"

"Mark!" Meredith screeches thinking that he is calling out the wrong name and then notices the light filtering in. He jumps to attention nearly cutting his own head off by the low clearance of the bunk bed. He pulls his pants up and grabs his shirt hustling down the hall.

"Naomi!" To his horror she actually stops and opens the door to a small conference room letting herself in and waiting. She kicks back and relaxes her palms against the wood table before jumping up and sitting down on it. He joins her moments later terrified, unfortunately coming back to sober land and still struggling to get his shirt on.

"Nothing happened." Is all he can say and it's halfway true. Given ten more minutes something would have been happening and it would have been happening in a big way.

"Clearly. Mark shut the door." Naomi swings her feet, flip flops fresh from the plane dangling off her toes.

He hears the click and turns to meet his master by pacing again. "Say it." He whispers.

"Say what?"

"Tell me that you have to tell Addison, I know. You guys talk about everything and you've never been able to keep a secret so let's get this over with."

"I'm not telling Addison." She states with a smug grin.

"You aren't?"

"No, but you are."

He shakes his head and paces a little faster turning every five seconds to change directions. "No."

"Yes you are. You're going to grow the hell up Mark Andrew Sloan. You are going to stop sleeping with women when you are hurting and you are going to be there for Addison." Her words cuts and she smiles a little wider in victory.

"No one can be there for Addison, she doesn't allow it."

The circulating air blows the green leaves of the tree in the corner and Naomi watches with mock fascination. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to blame her. She's going through-"

"A lot of shit, I know! God do I know that."

"Well, it would seem that you forget every time she leaves you alone! Mark…If you hurt her-" Naomi raises her hand and then balls it into a tight fist by her side. She's always been overly protective of Addison and what can she say? The woman needs help, even if she won't admit it to anyone. "I will kill you and I'm not talking metaphorically cut you up and bury you…I am talking I will slit your throat and watch you bleed out before I bother calling an ambulance or attempting to help. And I will rot in a jail cell for the rest of my life so that Addison won't have to hurt anymore. That's my devotion, where the hell is yours?"

He turns his attention to the window and the rain splattering against the two foot window pane. "I screwed up Nae."

"Oh really? Because I thought it was Pete I just walked in on top of the dirty intern-" she watches his face lift, "and no, we aren't going to say it was Pete. We're going to march back into that room and you are going to explain to her that you almost made a mistake but you stopped yourself and you are very, very sorry and will take whatever punishment she wants to give because while I care that you are hurting, while I respect that this is difficult for you too- this is harder on her and that's where my focus is right now. We'll get to you when the time comes. Understood?"

He swallows heavily feeling the scotch bubble below and rubs his forehead before slouching into a chair. "Fuck, what a mess."

"Mark you need to focus." Naomi warns her tone dropping the hard exterior. She slides into the chair next to her and squeezes his shoulder. "This is your last chance with Addie and as much as I know you love her, I can't back you when you pull these stunts."

"I know."

"How is he?" She asks pulling out of the moment and back into reality.

Mark hangs his head in defeat like it will suffice as an answer and Naomi lets herself out to go find Sam and Violet before her ex-husband finds Addison or before Violet pisses someone off with her moodiness.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"Addie?" Naomi peeks her head in the room that the blonde nurse assures her holds one very mangled and unsteady Derek M. Shepherd.

She finds Addison sitting impossibly still, in the chair next to the bed, gripping Derek's hand. She's pretty sure she could poke her and she wouldn't move. Naomi saunters in, shaking her head at Sam and Violet, silently telling them to go find something else to do for awhile. She takes the seat opposite and grabs Derek's other hand. She doesn't notice the tears streaming down her friend's face until she looks up.

It's the quiet crying that scares Naomi. She can handle the passionate heaving, gasping, choking but this- the fixed expression, controlled breathing and endless water flowing down Addison's pale cheeks is terrifying. There's no effort to it, there's no emotion in it. It just seems to be a constant disturbing state. "Addie?"

Blue eyes lift, acknowledge and turn back to the guy with the bandaged head. They fall quiet. Naomi watches the monitors like a television screen providing little flicks of entertainment and distraction.

"I don't think I can do this." Addison whispers in to the beeping atmosphere.

"Do what?"

"This isn't my decision to make Nae. This isn't right…What are you doing here?" She raises her head.

"Mark called."

"Oh."

"Addison, you know I love you and I love Derek and I would hate for this to end…but this is yours. I'm not giving you the answer. I'll be here-"

"Richard said we could operate." She rambles off quickly recollecting an earlier conversation that her mind refuses to stop playing over and over.

"I'm not sure…I think-"

"I can't just kill him." She stands, arms hanging loosely by her sides.

"I'm not going to sit here and debate medical facts with you. You know you aren't killing him, I know you know that." Naomi tries patiently.

"I have to do something. If there's a chance that fixing the bleed could resolve-"

"It won't do anything Addison. That's not the problem." Naomi reaches across Derek for the chart just to make sure what people were telling her was actually true.

"I have to try…I have to do something." She takes to pacing, mind whirling on only one subject- how to save Derek.

"He's a donor." Naomi remarks flitting through the pages.

"So?"

"Sit." Naomi instructs and then drags her chair next to Addison's on the other side of the room. The redhead calms, sits and grabs Derek's hand once again praying that her thumping heart will somehow restart brain activity and he will open his bright blue eyes again and tease them all for standing vigil over his bed. "Now, Derek is a donor."

"Yes."

"If you…if we let him…" Naomi takes a deep breath. "He could save lives Addison; I think he would want that. I don't think he would want to be cut open again in the name of a .08 chance. If he flatlines on the table then all of those organs are lost-"

"You're talking about him like he's a piece of meat."

"I'm talking like a doctor. I'm talking like his friend. I'm talking like someone who has known him almost as long as you have, not as well, but as long. And for the life of me, the only thing I can ever remember about Derek Shepherd is that he wanted to save lives."

"I want to save him." She admits quietly, "I can't do this without him. I don't want to."

"We can't save them all." Naomi squeezes her friend's shoulder weakly trying not to cry right along with the other woman.

"Excuse me, Dr. Montgomery?" Izzie questions from her spot in the open doorway.

Addison doesn't look up or speak until Naomi nudges her in the side. "Yeah."

"We have a bit of a situation. It seems that we have lost Elianna."

"What?"

"Your niece. Alex had her and she was with us and then we turned around and she was gone. We've scoured the entire hospital and I'm just wondering if you could think of any place she would go or hide."

"Home." Adddison rolls her neck trying to stretch it out. Time to switch to a different crisis.

"I'll go." Naomi stands.

"No, it's my responsibility. I shouldn't have left her with Mark apparently."

"Dr.-" Naomi starts and then stops when she realizes she doesn't have a name, "I'll be right out, just give us a minute, okay?" The blonde disappears and Noami fights her conscious on whether or not telling Addison would be beneficial. She sticks with her original plan and then speaks. "Before you go all bitchy hormonal pregnant woman on Mark, I think you should know that he isn't taking this very well either and while losing a child you entrusted to him was overly irresponsible, even for him, he is hurting. Be gentle, alright? You need each other whole, not torn to shreds."

Naomi excuses herself with a pat on the back for another nice speech and sets out to clean up another problem. She considers switching jobs as she wanders down the hall behind the tall, flirty resident. She certainly feels like a janitor.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"No, tall, leggy, redhead. Her name is Addison. I know she's here, why won't anyone tell me anything?" Pierce recites over and over. This is fifth nurse and he is getting absolutely nowhere. He straigtens the color of his blue button up and waits impatiently. He narrowly hears a, "Daddy!" before Ellie latches onto his legs.

His breath catches when he sees his oldest daughter clinging to life from his jeans. She's grown so much in a few short months and she looks more like her mother every day. "Hey punkin." He lifts her onto his shoulder and hugs her tightly never wanting to let go, never wanting to see the way his wife's feature's play out over her pale face.

"You came back." She murmurs into his shirt, too excited not to cry. Her tears stick to his shirt, dampening his shoulder.

"I'll always come back baby." He whispers gently into her ear.

"Did you bring Mommy?"

He's not sure what she knows or what anyone has said about any situation because he left at a bad time with a lot of things undone, "No sweetheart. Mommy is not coming back, you know why that is?" He jaunts down to the reception area and plants her into a chair, kneeling before her face.

"Cause she's a flying angel in the sky." Elianna replies earnestly watching her father's face crumble. She doesn't know why this is so hard for everyone else. She gets it.

"That's right."

"But if she's flying and she can see me then why won't she come down?"

"She can't."

"Why?" Truth be told, Ellie has nine hundred and one questions that she didn't feel were appropriate. She knows her aunt hasn't been well and she isn't going to add to the pandemonium in fear of being yelled at like Addie yells at Mark sometimes when no one thinks she is listening.

Pierce loses his will, loses his footing and stumbles back onto his ass letting the tears fall down. He thought he was ready, he thought he was strong enough when he got the call about his baby being admitted into Seattle Grace. He took time. He drove, he cried, he drank, he commenced with grieving but this was not anything that he was prepared for. "Because angels can't come down." He wipes his nose on the edge of his sleeve and keeps his eyes down when people begin to stir and look up at him.

"But I want her to." Ellie demands.

"Me too." Pierce nods.

"She doesn't want to see me?" She doesn't understand why her sheer will and determination will not achieve this; she can't begin to fathom the finality of the situation.

"I imagine there's nothing else she would rather see but you and your sister but she can't come back okay?" He asks and prays she'll stop asking things before he really breaks down and melts into a puddle of hot, salty tears.

"When can I see her?"

"Whenever you want. Just close your eyes and remember how she looks and she's there." That's what he does and it works. He envisions her with a hand on her hip lecturing him about all the things he forgot at the store, imagines her smiling down at him while he pushes their daughter on the swing in the backyard that hasn't been used in months, thinks about all the pointers she would give in this situation and tries his hardest to stay focused.

"That doesn't make sense Dad." (Though the world be damned, everyone keeps telling her it's true…it doesn't work, she's tried.) Ellie crinkles her nose and scoots into his lap feeling the need for the comfort and love that has been so missing.

"I know but that's all we've got kiddo." He presses a kiss to the top of her curls and breaths in the scent that was once so familiar to him. He can't begin to think of all the hell he has caused Addison, let alone how they have all been doing. "You know where they are keeping your sister?" The child he abandoned with reckless disregard when she wouldn't stop crying, the one who he has no connection with.

"Kendy?"

"Kennedy, yes."

"No."

"Oh thank god, there you are!" Izzie exclaims, jogging over, way ahead of Naomi.

"Who are you?" Pierce looks up.

"Dr. Stevens, who are you?"

"Pierce…Vechio." He stutters finally seeing Naomi come into full view, "Naomi."

"Pierce, you got my message finally?" Naomi chastises with her eyes scowling.

"Sorry, I was out of the country."

"How convenient for you."

Izzie looks from side to side; child snuggled into the man's embrace and decides it is high time to skedadle.

"I'm sorry, about everything." He murmurs warmly.

"Don't apologize to me. I'm not the one who has had your children for the last two months."

"Hi Nae!" Ellie squeals, having recovered quickly from her bout of indecision and questioning. Her father is back and that is all that matters in the moment.

"Hi Ellie, how have you been?"

"Good. My tummy got sick but Mark gave me ice cream and let me color."

"I heard." Naomi smiles and gives the bouncing child a quick hug.

"Who is Mark?" Pierce asks worriedly.

"An old friend. He's with Addison; he's been helping her raise your children. Now if you'll follow me, I'll take you up to see your other kid." She turns without waiting and impatiently dashes for the elevator. It's time to set everyone straight.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"So you think you can just let him lay there for months and months!" Mark shouts at Addison. He originally meant to enter the room and set the record straight about the Meredith incident but after her unencouraged silence he got angry. Most of the anger is relating to himself but he wouldn't be Mark if he wasn't taking it out on someone else. Now, they're stuck debating the merits of the whole surgery/donor/miracle triangle. She's tired of this talk and she's tired of everyone looking at her like she's supposed to know the answers. She doesn't.

"I don't know." She replies casually slouching in her chair as Mark blatantly keeps his back to her staring out the slits of the hospital blinds.

"He wouldn't want that Addison."

"Why does everyone keep trying to tell me what he would want? I was married to him for eleven-"

"Years. We know." He finishes enraged.

"I think I want to try the surgery." Her voice drops out at the end. She knows it isn't the right choice. She knows that it will more than likely resolve nothing but Addison's holding out for hope because she thinks there isn't any other way something bad can happen to her. The whole experience feels surreal and she is half expecting to wake up any minute now.

"Why! What the fuck do you think that will accomplish? Undue hardship on his body, permanently securing the fact that he will have limited bodily functions if it works? You want him to be PVS or something? You hate him that much!"

"I have to do something." She replies coldly. She's decidedly detached. Crying is not going to solve anything right now and she's basically out of tears anyway. She watches the little hairs on Derek's arm swivel in the circulating hospital air. Why does everything always have to be so complicated? Why does the world take pleasure in kicking her ass?

"There aren't choices here Addison; it's fucking over, okay? Over. Let him go." He's talking to himself at this point more than her.

"Maybe-" She squeaks.

"No."

"Well, it could happen Mark. People wake up from comas all the time…years later even."

"You will not do that to him, to his family Addison, no…just no."

"You can't tell me what to do." She reminds him.

He faces her unable to hide the emotion in his face, he clenches his jaw and focuses on anything else. He's not going to cry in front of her, he won't cry around Derek. He's the strong one, it doesn't matter who can or can not see. "Please." He whispers.

She nods and fixes her palm against her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud. "I still think-"

"Addie, God doesn't give miracles to people like us." He shakes his head and storms out of the room, eyes fixed down to avoid everyone in the immediate vicinity.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"She's going to be okay though, right?" Pierce asks one of the nurses that keeps drifting in and out of his youngest daughter's room.

"It looks good but we need to keep her overnight again for observation."

He exhales heartily, "Ok, thanks."

"Pierce?" Naomi questions as she enters the room again with Violet, Sam and Ellie.

"Yeah." He looks up and watches the mangey crowd of people that he knows he's seen before but actually has no idea who they are.

"This is my- this is Sam and this is Violet. We all work together in California and Violet is actually the clinic psychiatrist. She's been seeing Ellie a little on and off over the last few weeks because there have been some issues and she would like to discuss those with you."

"Issues?" He runs a few fingers through his dark hair. He had issues but he didn't bet on his kids having them. They were too young.

"It's nothing big." Violet reassures him and extends her arm out guiding him from the room, "I stole a conference room so we should probably hurry up before I get caught and kicked out." She chuckles and follows him out of the room, shooting a calming look to Naomi.

He nearly throws himself into the leather desk chair in the small room with comforting northwest Native American prints. This has got to be where they bring families he muses and then holds his breath as the curly headed woman opts for a chair on the corner as opposed to all the way across the table.

"Pierce." She wavers.

"Yeah, I'm sorry…I just didn't think…" He drags on floating in and out of daydreaming.

"It's nothing that can't be managed and actually since you are back I have a feeling things are going to start looking up."

"What did she do?"

"Just some little things, behavioral differences. I'm not a child expert actually; I was just doing Addison a favor. I do have some great names that come highly recommened though."

"I'm not interested." He mutters cradling his head in his hands.

"Okay, well it may resolve itself…or it may be a life long problem. You pick." Violet can play hardball, she was born for this, hell she was almost a lawyer.

"Fine."

"Good." She reaches into her purse pulling out the blue rubber-banded stack and slides it across the table, "Just tell them to call me and I will fax over her records."

"My four year old has therapy records, great."

"Technically she's five- you missed her birthday- and yes, she does but we can get this under control, Pierce, you need to understand that. It's a hard change for everyone-"

"Don't talk about my wife." He snaps defensively. This is his first trip back to reality. So far he's skipped the country and pretended he was touring Europe on vacation. Technically, it was Reagan's dream vacation. She wanted to go within the next five years and do the backpacking thing with hotels and daily showers. He explained that it defeated the purpose but went along with it and before he had gotten home the next day from work she had the whole thing mapped out. He found it two days after she died, piled under the mail on the desk and then he simply took off. He boarded the plane without any other clothes. Just his passport and wallet.

"Ok. Moving on. A few things you should know-"

"Why?"

Violet pulls back confused, "Well you are taking her home aren't you?"

"I don't know. I hadn't really given that any thought."

"You hadn't given it any thought?" Violet mocks.

"I just got the call from Naomi that Kennedy was in the hospital. I wanted to check on her. I had to make sure-"

"I'm advising you to take her home."

"Why?"

God when did this man get so dense? Violet's certain she's had better conversations with a rock. "Because she needs you. She needs her father. She needs her family to get through this."

"She's with her family here."

"So you just hopped on a plane to check on the baby and what? Now you're going to hop on another and go home and abandon them?"

"Addison is good with them. Addison is a good person. She took them in when I…couldn't." He tries to not replay the horrible scene of him shoving his children off onto her doorstep.

"Addison is struggling with her own issues and I bet she would really appreciate it if you stepped up to bat and took your children. It's been almost three months Pierce. We all understand how hard it is but it's time-"

"You married?"

"Well, no." Violet shakes her head, checking her watch. Perhaps she should just start billing the whole damn family. She could probably retire.

"Have any children?"

"No." She hums knowing full well where he is headed and cuts him off when he opens his mouth, "Don't tell me I don't understand…don't shove this off like that and get defensive. Understand what I am saying and appreciate it for what it is. It may hurt but it's the truth. That girl needs her dad. She needs her home. She needs her school and her friends and some semblance of normalcy; I know you can grasp at that."

"Yeah." He clears his throat nervously, "I'm sorry…I haven't…I don't know how to do this."

"There are about nine hundred books on grieving out there Pierce but not one of them is going to tell you what's right for you, okay? Take it one day at a time."

"Ok."

She watches him battle thoughts and eventually waits until he falls silent, deeming it safe to press on. "She draws death- that's the main thing. I think it's a moderately heathly obsession but still, it should be monitored and watched for now. She fidgets a lot and her emotions are fairly out of control but I think a lot of that has been being in a new place, with relatives that she really didn't know and a new sister draining everyone's energy and time."

"She asked me about her…Reagan."

"That's good. She'll have questions." She stands and rounds the table lightly pressing a hand to his shoulder and giving a quick squeeze. "All you can do is you best…and at the end of the day both of your girls are always going to love you. Don't be afraid about making mistakes or saying something wrong, kids…they bounce back." She walks away leaving him slumped over, head now completely flat against the mahogany table. "They need you…and I think you need them."

**_-----_**  
\/p  
"Did you tell her?" Naomi hisses in Mark's ear. She finally found him after sending Sam to the cafteria to feed Ellie while Violet was busy with Pierce.

"No."

"No?"

"I got distracted." He grumbles looking straight up at the bars of the bunk bed above him. He's thankful she left the lights out because he's got some seriously red, puffy eyes.

"Distracted how?" She counters carefully. He's clearly distraught.

"I was talking about Derek." His voice cracks on the "K" and he clears his throat abrasively.

"I'm sorry Mark." Naomi sighs and saunters over to the bed. She nudges his legs toward the wall and takes a seat finally giving into the high emotion of the day.

"It…just…sucks." He rolls his eyes at himself for sounding like a girl and protectively folds his arms over his chest.

"Yes it does." She pauses, "There isn't anything we can-"

"Nothing short of him spontaneously opening his eyes and deciding to be with us again. He said- never mind." He scoots over and she lies down next to him letting her left arm hang off the bed and graze the cool, smooth tile.

"You can tell me things, I'm not Addison but I like to think we are all still friends and what not."

"He said a few days ago that he had everything he needed."

"In relaton to?"

"I don't know. We were talking about Addison…he told me…he said he wouldn't have picked anyone else." His eyes well with hot liquid as his best friend and brother's words echo and rattle. Its so familiar and it will shortly be gone. He just wants to beat the shit out of someone.

"That's a good thing." Naomi sniffles.

"He was just right here. I was just talking to him and he was talking about his- I don't-" He never thought it would be him. Mark had few relationships in the entire world but the ones he had were strong. He doesn't know what happens to him if there is no Derek.

He can't fathom that dark place.

"Life's weird like that." Naomi affirms feeling the tears slide down her face. "Mark, you still have to tell her."

"I know." He sighs, "But I just got done yelling at her and essentially telling her she was a horrible person who didn't deserve miracles so I think…it would be better to wait."

"You just keep on digging yourself in deeper and deeper Sloan. And well, you know what they say, no time like the present."

"I don't want to right now."

"It needs to happen. I'm leaving you now but if you wait any longer then I'm going to tell her myself and I won't leave out any details." She hates to sound like such a bitch but someone needs to be looking out, and she's the only one with any sort of presence of mind lately.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
When he finally sat up to deal with things it was after eight. He stumbled around the hospital looking miserable until he found her staring at the babies in the NICU from the window. He slides in next to her and lightly rubs her lower back as she fights the ever present tears. "Addison."

"Please don't." She pleads.

"I need to-"

"I don't want to fight anymore Mark. You win, you all win. I signed the papers. He'll be taken off of life support tomorrow morning. But he gets a chance to fight. I wanted the night- I just thought he deserved a few more hours to pull something out. I can't have him cut open and gutted, I just can't."

He gasps and pauses. That is not what he considers a win. "I need to tell you something."

She slumps her shoulders, throwing posture to the wind and faces him with a face so broken that he's certain he's never seen it before. Before he opens his mouth he husg her tightly to his chest trying to take the pain away. "I did something bad." He whispers.

She doesn't respond and he catches his breath, pressing ahead. "I almost slept with someone else…but I didn't. I stopped and I'm so sorry Addison. You know how I get and…I'm just really sorry."

She laughs and wrenches herself free of the arms that have assuredly been holding someone else within the last few hours. "I guess I deserve that. I told you to go do it and all."

"You didn't. I wouldn't have, what?"

"I think you should take the offer you got from Massachusettes." She murmues remembering the letter he was bitching about right after moving to Los Angeles. Apparently when one of the top plastic surgeons (or the best he would argue) moves, people start to talk.

"What?"

"I need a break." She shakes her head, batting at her eyes, "I can't handle this anymore. That was your free pass…I know you're hurting but if you wanted to fuck someone then that someone should have been me. You blab on about how we're in this together and at the first test you jump ship. Thanks for showing your colors and reassuring me…I love you but I don't have the strength to put up with this so…just go, please."

There's something so fitting about her saying that she loves him for the first time while breaking things off with him. It's them, that's how they do things. "Addie, I wouldn't. I didn't want to-"

"Oh! You expect me to believe that Mark Sloan didn't want to be sexed up? How stupid do you think I am…oh wait, I think you already answered that once today. Goodbye Mark." She spins on her heel, the one he picked out that very morning when they were very much together, before he kissed her and told her that he was right behind her.

He's jumped off the tracks. He feed her to the sharks and walked away. His fist connects with the opposite wall before he can think and he jumps back moaning and cursing. "Fuck, fuck…shit. Damn it!" He cradles it against his stomach and strides down the hall to find some ice.

She collapses into a linen closet as she hears him strike what she is assuming is a wall. Then she finds an old empty bucket and turns it over to sit on. She clasps her hands around her knees hoping that she didn't just make the worst mistake of her life. Part of her wishes that he would burst through the door and kiss her soundly, telling her that he loves her and that it was all a lie but she's smart enough to know that that isn't how her life goes.

Her life topples with children of a soon to be dead father, children of her dead sister, broken promises and ridiculous pain. She rocks back and forth slowly, keeping her breathing calm and controlled.

She's has to be strong for herself, that's the only option now.

There's no one to hold Addison Montgomery up anymore. She shivers at the task and resolves to hold her head high in the mess. She will overcome, she will prevail. If not for herself, then for Derek's children because he deserves happy, healthy babies to watch over from heaven. That's her plan and it's the only thing she's got.

**_-----_**  
\/p  
At 9:00 the next morning Addison stands next to Naomi. To her right is Sam, then Violet and after a lot of begging and pleading Meredith stands unphased in the corner. He breathes for a whole hour before things begin to shut down. No one moves, no one speaks and no one asks where the hell Mark is. Addison keeps her mind straight. She watches her long time lover inhale shallowly and exhale peacefully.

Images and memories dance through her mind and she knows she isn't the only one in the room crying. If she would turn to the right she would see there isn't a dry eye in the place but she can't move. All of her energy is devoted to remembering her wedding, their first dance where he stepped on her feet, the first time he took her on a ferry boat, the nights where they would curl up on the couch together and watch the news after a long day. She thinks about their time at work, how the world is losing one of the best surgeons she ever saw operate and she holds herself in the same group. She nearly shrieks trying to inhale when she thinks about Derek's family who is probably still mid flight after being delayed to due snow storms on the runway in New York.

They were supposed to be here.

The way Derek would swing his nieces in the air until they squealed for mercy, the way he'd play baseball with his nephews, the way she always felt secure (until the end) when he was around, the way he smells so fresh all of the time (even after sleeping in the hospital), the way his hair likes to frizz in the humidity, the way he would blush deeply when they shared any sort of sentiment in the early years.

She feels someone grip her left hand and squeeze tightly. Looking at Richard she smiles weakly.

At 10:17 am on a storming Thursday in early November, Derek Shepherd takes his last breath. Addison bites her lip so hard the skin breaks and blood trickles into her mouth. She watches her memories slide down the metaphorical rain gutter as the monitors indicate a life lost. She nods at Richard.

"Time of death 10:18."  
**_ -----  
_**A/N2: So I wanted to save the bulk of my author's notes for the end here. I'm certain everyone wants my head on a stick and you are free to yell, tell me to go to hell and threaten never to read again but...as I keep saying this story has a happy ending and we'll get to the fluff. As much as I would like to start the next part with, "Five months later, things are grand and Mark and Addison are now married..." I think that would be cheating the situation. So more angst will be approached but also more healing because I honestly feel like they need some time apart to make personal decisions. Thanks to everyone for sticking around and dealing with the chaos, I really do appreciate it. :)

* * *


	29. When the morning slowly fades to night

A/N: Apologies for generally just being sucky at updating this. I'd insert my million excuses here but I'm sure you'd all rather read. Thanks to Hannah for taking time out of her wacky schedule to read through and for all of the amazing comments last time. You guys really keep this going for me. Enjoy--

* * *

_When everything starts to feel the same  
And everyone around you seems to change  
You went along with me when things weren't right  
And when the morning slowly fades to night  
When all you have just falls apart  
And nothing seems to work out right  
And you're trying_

_You're still alright_  
- Adam Merrin, "Still Alright"

* * *

"Addison, wait!" Naomi screams as her friend retreats from the hospital room that once held a very prominent surgeon.

She slams her heel into the ground and waits for a second, just long enough, and then turns. "Naomi, leave me alone."

"Addison-"

"I don't need you to protect me from anything. I don't need you for anything right now, okay?" She raises her eyebrows daringly.

Naomi doesn't answer. She crosses the barrier of personal space and wraps her arms around the taller woman tightly. Addison gasps shudders and pushes back immediately but Naomi doesn't move and refuses to loosen her grip. For her part, Addison keeps the tears at bay and waits it out silently before begging, "Please let go of me."

"If I let go you're going to run."

"Maybe."

"Addie, I'm just, you don't deserve this-"

She chuckles because she tends to laugh sometimes when her life seems so awful that it can not actually be happening. This is just so her life, it's unreal. "Ah, but I do. I really, really do."

"You don't. No one does…I'm so sorry, I know that sounds stupid but…I am, sorry." She finally steps back but maintains a firm grip on both of her best friend's hands, clinging for everything; anything.

She grins and cocks her head to the side, "Yeah, I'm sorry too." She swings their hands from side to side when the nurses begin to look on too intently, "You know…if we keep this up, I bet we're 'together' by lunch."

Naomi shakes her head and pouts, "If you want-"

"I can't do this. Not right now and certainly not here. I need to go pick up Der…I need to go to the airport." She swallows when her voice gets to thick and her throat constricts.

"I'm coming. Let me go grab my purse and tell Sam and Violet."

"You don't need to come Naomi, I can do this. They might not like me but I'm sure we can stand a car ride together and I don't want them crammed into the back of one of the world's slowest moving taxis."

"I want to come." She nods and disappears momentarily as Richard closes in on Addison from the doorway.

"Addison…" He starts and then drops off pulling her into another unwelcome hug. The touching is still highly uncalled for and uncomfortable for her and she almost wishes that she was sedated.

"Richard, I can't breathe." She gasps trying to wriggle free.

"Right, sorry." He claps a hand to her shoulder and shakes his head. "If you need anything-"

"You live in your office; I know where to find you."

"Yes, well I mean it. Say the word Addison and it's yours."

Apparently it's something like clicking her ruby red slippers but she never gets home. She doesn't have a home anymore because home isn't a place, it's a sense of belonging and hers is completely gone. "Will do."

"Take it easy." He warns and nods toward her stomach knowingly.

"Scout's honor." She waves him off and taps her heel into the glowing tile trying not to think. If she focuses on the things around her this will be easier. This can be done. It can be managed and she is determined not to make a fool out of herself this go around. Practice makes perfect and Addison Montgomery doesn't need to learn lessons more than once.

* * *

She meets the somber looking group in baggage claim because she's always found it easier to meet people there then try and track them down as they scurry from their gates in search of bathrooms and nutrition. None of them look prepared. None of them look ready and none of them look at her.

"Hi, I'm Naomi Bennett, one of Addison's friends from California."

"Right." Derek's mother Susan nods. She extends her hand carefully and offers a light handshake. Her shoulders are covered with a heavy black coat and she stands proudly dark brown hair unaffected by the possibly graying effects of having five children and millions of grandchildren.

"Hi, I'm Nancy…oh and my husband Kyle and our daughter Nicole." The woman with short brown hair smiles warmly and shoves her four year old forward toward the stranger. She begins to point left to right and rattles off, "That is my sister Kathleen, her husband Joshua and their children- Jacob, Haley, Evan, Rachel and Whitney. Then we have another sister Margaret- call her Maggie and her husband Jack, then Alisa, Nathan and the baby is Brittney. And last but not least we have Sandra and Dan and their kids Michael, Colton, Leila and Kelsey." She finishes out of air nervously and Kyle tugs her back by the sleeve of her coat.

Naomi grins and looks to Addison who is staring at the ground, "Well nice to meet all…of you." She waves knowing she's already forgotten all of the children's names but has tried to commit the adults to memory.

"We should probably do the whole rental car thing. Nancy you take Mom." Kathleen orders as her children stand in a uniform group. It is clear who the leader of the group is and Naomi determines her to be the eldest anyway as her children push their towering height over their parents. She stares down Addison before breaking away from the noisy children who all look at the conveyor belt expectantly.

"Kathleen-" Addison states softly looking back at the crowd.

"Jesus Addie, I leave for two days and you kill him?"

"I didn't…I-"

"I'm kidding Addison. I know, I understand. He had-I had a feeling." Kathleen reaches over and hugs her loosely.

"How's Mom?" Addison asks looking over her shoulder.

"She's upset. We're all upset...I feel like I'm in a daze…She'll be okay though."

She pensively chews on her lip before responding, "Yeah."

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay."

"I'm not going to find you soaking in the rain in front of the hospital again am I?" She scratches at the tight hold of her hair tie and smoothes down the fraying hairs that have been tugged on by various nieces and nephews during the flight. She's happy her children are older (the youngest two at age nine), even if they do test her resilience every day.

"No."

"Alright, let's get this underway," She pauses and drops her voice, "Did you and Derek ever make arrangements anywhere before…in New York?"

"No." Addison squeaks trying to breathe. Irresponsible would be an understatement but they were busy and young.

"Ok then. Well let's go get settled in at a hotel and then go from there. The kids need to be fed soon anyway and we haven't told the younger ones why we are here so they think we're on vacation away from school and…I kind of need to keep that charade up." Kathleen excuses herself and makes her way back to the luggage that has been piled on metal carts during her conversation with her ex-sister in-law.

"Yeah." Addison says softly to herself and watches her growing ex-family bumble around the area. Watches the older kids helping the younger kids, see the toddlers clinging to legs and the lone remaining infant peacefully sleeping through everything.

She saw Pierce yesterday. Saw him long enough to arrange that Elianna would stay with him while he was here and that they would meet for dinner tonight to work something out. While she's happy for the break away from both children, now watching her nieces and nephews bounce around she kind of misses the pouting, whining five year old and always screaming infant. So far no one has noticed the slight curve of her stomach, and though she is well hidden by her waist length navy wool coat, she knows it is only a matter of time before they figure it out and she mostly just wishes she had the two redheads to distract her from life and all of the horrible feelings bubbling under the surface.

"Addie, where's a good hotel for all of us?" Maggie yells above the mounting noise.

"You guys can just follow me if you want." She replies and then tags along the group with Naomi at her side as the adults wait in line and she is surrounded by kids.

"Hey Aunt Addison, guess what?" Evan asks joyfully pushing up his thick glasses on his nose.

"What?"

"I got second place at the science fair this year for my solar system."

"That's very good."

"That's nothing!" Alisa screeches, "I got first place at my last gymnastics meet. You should have seen it Aunt Addie..."

She listens as the very competitive kids try to outrank each other with piano recitals and karate competitions and finally it is Kathleen's daughter, the oldest in the whole bunch at eighteen (and who was the flower girl in her and Derek's marriage ceremony), who has until this moment been oddly quiet speaking, "I wish you were still around." She whispers softly and then grips her Aunt when she starts to cry.

"Haley…I…I'm sorry." She murmurs knowing how close Derek and she were.

"Ha-ley's crying, Ha-ley's crying!" Evan and Jacob tease.

"Hey you two knock it off. There's going to be a lot more crying so you better get used to it." Naomi urges.

"Who are you?" Jacob asks poking his twin brother in the side.

"My name is Naomi and I am a friend of your Aunt's."

"You can't tell us what to do." Evan affirms.

"Yeah, but I can." Joshua asserts, dragging his children away apologizing and patting his eldest on the back as Addison rocks on her heels holding her tightly.

"It'll be okay." Addison tells her niece's brown wavy hair that is pulled into a messy bun and probably hasn't seen a brush in days. Apparently this is the new style, or so she was informed last time the two were out shopping. Her hair only looks like that after surgery or before bed and she can't understand it but it works for the girl anyway.

She's always been closer with Derek's family than her own, often times babysitting various children when parents needed breaks and was officially named the best present giver by every single wide eyed child on Christmas mornings from years past. And this is the part she misses the most. The unity and crazy chaotic air that circulates when they all get together. And while it's a horrible excuse for a reunion, Addison would be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little relieved to see them all here…even if they don't feel the same way about seeing her.

"I miss him already." Haley replies and steps back, wiping the smudged black eyeliner from her cheeks.

"I know me too." Addison nods, "How about later, after the little ones are asleep, you and I do something. A movie, junk food, girl's night. Naomi here does a mean pedicure and maybe we could invite Leila, Kelsey and Whitney too. I bet everyone needs a break."

"Yeah, okay." She sniffles and then smiles lightly, "I'd like that, you're the best Aunt Addison."

She shrugs and grins, "Well, I try."

* * *

Mark spent the night in Joe's drinking only to realize that come morning, he really didn't want to be present in the room full of terrified people to witness the dying of a man that was essentially his brother. No, instead he managed to bed some blonde nurse with young, perky breasts that he barely remembers and momentarily forget that his life was falling apart.

He offered no apologies slipping from her bed in the early morning hours to return to the hotel. Gathered belongings in hand he called a cab and sat silent waiting in the lobby hoping against all logic for a glimpse of Addison's flaming hair. He hadn't meant to hurt her. It was not an intentional move; it was a frustrated, agonizing decision that has effectively ruined what he thought was once so wonderful about his life.

He spent weeks tortured after she left for California, he packed up his things and sought out a new job just to be closer and what has it gotten him? Right back where he started. Stranded in Seattle, no Derek, no Addison and a nameless bedmate somewhere in the greater downtown area. He peels the cuticle on his left pointer finger watching the rain outside trying to convince himself that this is not running away. This is not leaving to escape the problem.

This is giving Addison what she wanted.

He refuses to stick around for the services anyway. There will be no eulogies out of his mouth, no well wishes into his ears and no one clasping his shoulder as he tries not to cling to Addison. He's not entirely sure he would go even if the whole Meredith thing didn't happen. He may have gone for her, to be her support system, but not out of his own volition. Funerals aren't his scene. Bars in the airport, however, very much are. He ponders the flashing board above his head as he stands in line. There has got to be somewhere to go where everything won't hurt this much. There simply has to be a town or a place or hell, even a country that will not constantly remind him of his dead best friend. Dead best friend, he thinks the words but they don't register…not yet.

He checks his watch and picks. Buying the ticket takes all of ten minutes and then he is off to find his favorite Sea-Tac restaurant for a stiff drink and maybe something to quell his gurgling stomach. When he sits, drink in hands, he can finally understand her will to stay silent. He comprehends the need to shut everyone out, the desire to curl into a tiny ball and stare at the wall for hours on end. It doesn't solve anything but then again nothing does so in some weird way all of this is helping him understand the love of his life a little better. And there is nothing else to gain from it. Nothing but pain and a sense of loss because things without Derek in the world are not right and he doesn't know how he'll ever deal with that.

As things begin to bustle around him all he sees is the amber colored liquid slowly disappearing from the glass in front of him and his shaking hand. It hasn't really sunk in. There's the tightness in his chest and an aching in the pit of his stomach but he knows he's not dealing yet and he knows it will hit him like a ton of bricks. He drains the alcohol, clears his throat out and stands strongly without making eye contact with any of the women at the bar.

He couldn't care less anymore.

* * *

"Nice place." Naomi states throwing her purse onto the couch of Addison's hotel room. The room, she now notices, though she shouldn't be surprised is devoid of all things relating to Mark. All but one- an old grey t-shirt is clinging the edge of the bed and the way Addison skims her hands over the edges as she walks by is not lost on her friend. "Addie-"

"Don't."

"He was just being Mark." Naomi defends tiredly.

Addison closes her eyes and tries to will away whatever thoughts of women and Mark flash before her eyes, "I can't believe he left."

"You told him-"

"I know what I told him." She says coldly, hands running over the soft fabric again. For once it would be nice if Mark didn't obey her wishes, if he stuck around and got what he wanted and fought for her a little harder, hard enough to push past the rough exterior she keeps up. She scoops it up into her lap and fall gracelessly to the bed burying her head in his lingering scent.

"Maybe you shouldn't have told him to go. You guys could have worked things through." Naomi stays away, she thinks it's for the best, and leans up against the back of the couch facing the rapidly deteriorating redhead.

"It's just that there's always something wrong with us…and we never get to talk…and I'm tired Nae, I'm so tired."

"I know."

"I just want to sleep." Her face finally crumples when her nose adjusts to the smell of the Yankees tee and she can no longer smell the man she misses.

"You could take a nap before your dinner tonight." Naomi offers, still keeping her distance and watching carefully. She sent Sam and Violet to check in here whenever they were ready but was steadfast in staying with Addison for awhile. She will not be responsible for her friend getting stuck in another hospital bed because she doesn't think she can take any more. Mentally, emotionally, physically and Naomi wouldn't know what to do with her if she lost Derek's children over something so seemingly easy to control. Seemingly because in this state everything is hard. It's effort to breath and Naomi understands, so that's why she's taking charge.

"No, I want to sleep Nae. Like actually sleep." Her voice cracks but she presses on, "I want to dream about something other than death and not have to have Mark crushing me to get comfortable. I want to drift off for more than two hours and not wake up all antsy and already drained before the day can begin." It's about more than sleep for her, it's about healing, she wants to begin but she doesn't know where they steps are anymore. The tears fall and she feels stupid and a little childish for crying over something as silly as wanting sleep but she thinks, in this parallel universe, where nothing ever goes right that maybe it's acceptable.

Naomi watches her lie down, not bothering to kick off her shoes, and curls into a ball around the team shirt still clutched and twisted through her hands. She contemplates calling Mark and telling him to get his bitch ass back here to help but it wouldn't do any good. Bringing him back now would allow them to tear each other to shreds. "I know." She whispers feeling very pedestrian and out of place in the large almost vacant room. Slowly she toes out of her flats and finds a comfortable spot on the bed facing Addison. She reaches out gently, careful to take her time, in case her friend wants to jump back and begins to caress the soft skin on the back of her hand. It's not a lot but it's about all she can do.

Through watery eyes Addison conveys her deepest, darkest wish, however inappropriate, "I just need something good to happen. I need something good…to happen here."

Naomi opens her mouth to speak but shuts it just as quickly because it doesn't matter what she says back. Nothing changes the feel of desperation in Addison's voice, nothing will make her smile and most of all nothing she says will be of any comfort. Saying things like, "Give it time." or "It'll happen sweetie." seem borderline offensive so she keeps her mouth shut and traces little circles over her best friend's knuckles.

Addison cries it out, tells herself that it will feel better when she's done when she knows that it will feel worse. Her throat will ache and scratch, her eyes will try and hide behind puffy little pillows of remorse and her head will pound like all of the fluid has been drained from it. She tells herself that she needs to pull it together and keep things in check but if there was ever a person she felt comfortable with besides Mark it's Naomi. The relationship is different but it's still comforting to have her one foot away, maintaining a minimal contact state and offering every ounce of support she can give even though she is certainly hurting as well. "Maybe I'd feel better if you would cry with me." Addison sniffles.

"Oh." Naomi was not expecting that. She figured she'd save it all up and drench Sam's shoulder tonight when he finally drug her into bed. She breathes deep and tries to let the emotions overwhelm her. When it doesn't work she resorts to memories of Derek and as soon as the geeky, afro-headed, glasses wearing freak comes to mind she sobs so loudly that she jumps in surprise. "Happy?" She smiles weakly.

"Not in months." She buries her head in Mark's shirt again and covers her bubbling eyes with the thin layers of gray. She hates the way the world changes. The way it can feel so right, the way it feels like progress is being made but then something shifts and all of the game pieces are tossed by the wayside. Left to tumble through the air and scatter into the uninviting flooring. They bounce when they land and roll when they contact and when they finally get put back in place even the smallest jostle could send them all flying over the edge. She hates change. She wants a break.

"We will be happy. I promise." Naomi mutters and wipes her nose on her bare forearm. Thoroughly disgusted with herself she decides to stop the waterworks. "Imagine if someone from the hospital walked in now…" She grins attempting a stab at Addison's earlier joke.

"I don't care." Outside the walls of the hospital, away from peeking eyes and burning lips it doesn't really matter if she is falling apart and needing her best friend to rub her hand as she tries to control her breathing. She clenches her fists and drags in a shaky breath, "I miss him so much."

Derek? Mark? Both? Naomi doesn't know and she's not asking. "Me too."

* * *

Somehow she pulled it together. Got up off the bed after a little and much needed nap and put herself back together in time to steer Naomi out the door and greet Pierce and Elianna in the lobby. After deciding upon a kid friendly restaurant downtown she ushered them both into the back of her rental car and they arrived thirty minutes later after a near silent ride, the only noise being the urgent chorusing of Ellie in the back singing along to whatever song she thought she knew.

They are seated near a window, that's only purpose it seems is to occupy Addison until they can order. Pierce waits until the salads arrive and then clears his throat and hesitantly states, "I heard about Derek…I'm, well…you know."

"Yes. Me too." She says softly with a light smile.

"Mark seems like a nice guy though." He remarks remembering all the stories about the man Ellie has been so intent on telling him about. From how he gives good piggyback rides to how he is bad at brushing her hair but he still tries.

"Yeah." She cautiously picks up her fork and begins to pick at her greens a little more. She knows she should eat. She knows it's imperative to the development of her children but she also knows she feels like throwing up every other ten minutes still (whether it is the unreliable morning sickness of just the weight of the days, she isn't sure) and that she isn't hungry in the slightest.

"Addie!" Ellie nearly shouts and many patrons of the establishment turn their heads only proving that this was not as child appropriate as Addison thought it to be. Strike fifty.

"Ellie." She acknowledges and gives up on the fork. There's no point.

"Where's Mark?" She purses her lips seriously and then busies herself with straw that sits in the glass of milk before her.

Addison swallows hard, noting the obvious change in the girl's manner. It's no wonder that having someone who loves you around can markedly improve things; she only regrets not doing a better job one hundred and ten percent of the time. "He had some things to do."

"I like him a bunch even though he doesn't like to color with me." She stammers on and on about all the fun moments she had with the muscular man; bubbles and bounces her hair all through out the dinner until Addison feels like screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Dessert?" Pierce questions and Ellie immediately nods furiously and pouts.

"I'm a good girl. Tell Daddy, Addie. Tell him."

"You're a very good girl…and I think I am going to go take a walk." She pulls the cloth napkin from her lap, feeling strangely overwhelmed by the need for fresh air overpowering her.

"Addison?" Pierce questions as she stands wobbly onto her tall stilettos.

"I just need some air. You guys get dessert and I'll meet you outside when you're done, okay?" She smoothes the top of Ellie's head and places a lingering kiss to the fuzzy hairs before dashing through the front doors and gasping in the sweet scent of cold rain and pavement.

Her heels slouch into the cracks on the sidewalk as she paces the storefronts. She could leave and he'd call at some point to check on her but that would be an old Addison move so she stays. Remains strong like she was taught all those years ago with her chest tight and her head held high as people watch her little show. Undoubtedly, she is entertaining. Her black slacks slapping her ankles with every movement, her hair wet starting to droop from the weight and her gold bracelet dangling and glimmering in the early Seattle evening light. Yes the beginning of a breakdown by a middle-aged woman in the middle of a busy street is highly compelling.

Three minutes into her calmed tirade she sees Pierce literally dragging his daughter out of the building. When he reaches her Elianna has completely wound herself up and is bumbling with fresh tears threatening to stream down her already red and wet face. "Addie!" She shouts angrily wrenching her hand from her father's grasp and wrapping herself around the redhead's legs.

"She wanted dessert and I told her we could get it later." He explains, looking at the ground as people begin to stare.

"Oh, I didn't mean for you guys to rush. We can go get something now- if you want."

"Yeah." Ellie sniffles, "I was good!" She stamps her feet into the ground and Pierce shakes his head thoroughly embarrassed.

"Yes you were…until now." Addison acknowledges patting her head.

"Maybe we should head back to the hotel. She needs to sleep and I'm sure room service ice cream is just as good as any in this town."

"Sure." She grins, somehow happy that Ellie will still turn to her, even if it is just because she's angry. In some weird way it makes her Aunt feel like less of a failure.

* * *

"Ellie go get your things together." Addison instructs as they step foot back into her hotel room. She pushes the little girl (with a fresh vanilla ice cream cone half gone from some drive through) into the adjoining space before turning back to Pierce. He's standing cross-armed against the door. "Pierce, I know it's a lot to ask but I…I would like to keep in touch this time. I know I was a less than desirable god mother before but- I'm sorry and I want to know my nieces. I really, really would like to be in their lives and I could help you too- or I could try."

He sighs and looks down at the plush carpet under his brown loafers, "I never wanted kids."

"What?" Addison shakes her head knowing that she just signed up for a conversation she'd really rather not be having with her brother in-law.

"I never wanted kids. I don't even like them okay? And I work ninety hours a week- or at least I did. I'm a lawyer, a courtroom brawler or a paper shuffler and the spawn of Satan as some like to put it- not a father…but I loved her…I loved her so much." His angry tone rises and he sets his jaw refusing to cry in another's presence.

"Okay."

"No! Not okay, don't you get it? Are you that dense?"

"Pierce-"

"I couldn't tell her no and she wanted kids. Wanted four, four! Why do you think there's such a huge gap in between my children?" He pushes and at this point it's more Addison looking bewildered and perplexed while Pierce talks to himself.

"I don't know." And honestly she doesn't think it matters.

"We separated when Ellie was two and it was hell without her so I went back on my knees and prayed to God she would take me. I decided right then and there that if she'd have me, I'd give her twenty kids. Look at where that got me!" He slouches against the door, back resting in the grooved wood.

Addison nods.

"I don't like them- I love my own, I really do and I wouldn't trade those girls for…anything," he swallows heavily and they both know who he is speaking of, "but that doesn't make me a good father. That doesn't mean that I won't snap at them when I am angry and trying to work, and I won't be able to help them with their homework because I'll be busy trying to keep them clothed and I won't ever do any of it right…not like she would have wanted."

"You'll do it in your own way." Addison affirms, knowing that she'll be doing the same, "And maybe she would have done things differently- she was very bossy and demanding- but you'll do your best and no one will hold it against you for not making cookies or knowing how many pictures the refrigerator magnets can hold before everything will fall down."

"Addie! I'm done." Ellie proclaims proudly dragging her small purple suitcase on its wheels into the main room.

"Nice job pumpkin." Pierce nods, "Why don't you go make the bed…and then…count to one hundred or something."

"Why? I can count higher Dad." She asserts balancing on her tip toes.

"I'm sure you can, now scoot." She saunters from the room slowly, looking over her shoulder at the pair.

"I didn't even know she could to one hundred." He mutters, under his breath but still very audible and now suddenly calmed.

"She's pretty smart- I didn't know that either but we do now." she twists her hands together and then buries her hands in the pockets of her coat, "When are they releasing Kennedy?"

"Tomorrow morning." He answers instantly.

"See you knew that."

"Don't patronize me." He spouts uncontrollably, "Sorry."

"It's okay." Addison shuffles on her heels, pressing the spiky ends into the firm carpet and tapping as they stall in the moment.

"Done!" She states jovially returning to her father's side. No one mentions that there is no way it's been one hundred yet but instead they all stare back at each other intently. "Daddy?"

"Yeah."

"What are we doing?" She looks up, ice cream smudged to the bottom of her lip and dried on her chin.

"Leaving." He leads his daughter into the hallway before turning back almost wistfully, "I can't but think that if you had been a responsible doctor and picked up your damn phone or pager just once then this whole mess wouldn't have happened." He shakes his head as Ellie pulls on his hand trying to get him to move on, "I can't believe this happened."

* * *

Mark fumbles with his keys, drunkenly sorting through the maze of silver edges and gleaming sides. Finally settling on the appropriate one he tries to slip it into the lock. Once, twice, three times and then he picks a new key. Ten minutes later he stumbles into the box filled foyer of his own house in Santa Monica. He hasn't stepped foot in it since retrieving clothes for Addison's house months ago. His eyes blur over as he looks at the cardboard that encases the total sum of his past.

His old baseball mitt that he would use when he played with Derek in the backyard is about thirty inches from him. The high school football from his championship game where Derek sat in the band stands and played the saxophone in approval is in there as well. There are other things that he can't recollect in his dizzy haze. Maybe some old books, namely the ones Addison gave him years ago when she said he should broaden his interests. Random articles of clothing that possess no worth down here- things like coats, scarves, the black gloves he stole from Derek's hospital office in New York one night when he forgot his and knew his friend wasn't leaving the premises and one very old pair of rain boots.

Mark's not one to keep traditionally sentimental things. There are a few pictures - not in frames or photo albums - scattered in piles here and there but he keeps things. Most items in his life are dispensable. He can throw them away and buy the exact same item the next day or something better but he has the box. One box of crap no one else will ever see. It usually lies hidden behind piles of old running shoes in the back of closets. There's not much to it; there aren't a lot of events that he wants to remember but the football is in there like some old cliché and the key to his old apartment in New York (and the little Yankee's onesie which he will never cop to owning still) got thrown in there when he sublet the place, just in case, but more for all the memories made.

He glares at the black block print of sharpie etching on said box and kicks it wildly with his foot. Objects are nothing without the people who make them; people who gave them their meaning. His shoe hits the top edge of the box and it barely moves. Frustrated he winds up again to beat the living shit out of the thing because at the moment it is sounding like the best plan he's had in years but when his foot misses this time he merely gives up and crumples into the ground, slamming his head back against the hallway wall.

The pain echoes through the empty house and his eyes brim with angry, captive tears. He opens his mouth to curse the world and then shuts it just as quickly. He doesn't bother rubbing the aching bump forming under his skull. It's numb.

It's all numbed.

His eyes slide closed but he won't sleep. He'll sit all night but it won't be restful. His back will scream in protest but the complaints won't register with his mind. Instead he'll sit. Sit for days, staring at a stupid box that remains unopened.

He'll leave to get more beer and vodka steering clear of the smooth scotch he used to share with Derek because it hurts too much. He'll curl up in the sleeping bag lying on the dining room floor and stare out the sliding glass door at the roaring ocean for countless hours. He'll miss the funeral, he won't pick up his phone and he'll drink in an attempt to get away. And the more he sits, now bouncing the back of his skull against the very much dented wall, the more it sounds like a good idea. He'll drink to forget; to remember.

He'll drink it all away.

* * *

When Pierce leaves, Addison feel tears stinging the corner of her eyes. It's nothing new, patients blaming doctors because someone has to be blamed but this was personal and it didn't need to be said out loud. She was there, she was already at the hospital…neglectfully ignoring her pager but still there and- well she doesn't want to think about it so instead she straightens the comforter on the bed and orders popcorn and ice cream for the girls' night before calling Naomi and Violet up to distract her.

When the phone clicks down the room is engulfed in a deafening silence. Just Addison and her thoughts and frankly there's nothing more frightening at present. She plays with her nails and hopes that Violet at least manages to just hop in the elevator and come up but each separate call was met with no response and she knows better than to hope that they will magically appear. Three minutes slowly turn into five and five blend cohesively into twenty. Her fingers trace the perfected stitching on the blanket by her feet and she times her breaths trying to take the therapist's advice and just envision something better. Push past the road block and breathe. She can survive.

At the thirty minute mark she finally catches a break in the form of room service and again calls everyone to please come save her from herself. Kathleen tells her that the kids have already passed out because of the time difference and she sighs heavily dialing again and getting no response out of either co-worker. Twenty minutes later, melting ice cream in various dishes and cold stale popcorn waiting she finally gets a phone call from Sam saying that Naomi feel asleep over forty minutes ago and that he's afraid to wake her after the day they all had. His tone is morose and Addison is well aware that it would be selfish to impose herself upon them in quest of not being left in an empty room that seems threatening large without other people running around.

And on the other hand there's no way she's calling Violet to hang out so she scrolls through her phonebook on the blackberry next to herself almost daring the number 2 button to be held down but she thinks better of it and tosses the electronic device across the bed letting it land with a soft thud. She stands and turns toward the disorganized closet. The least she can do is some much needed house cleaning. Maybe she'll even get around to paying her bills for the house she no longer lives in; the life she no longer leads.

She has to do something.

* * *

In the passing days, as Kathleen and Nancy win the battle against Susan, and Derek's body is lowered into the ground in Seattle she finds herself oddly quiet again. Nothing feels important enough to warrant a real response so she nods a lot and grins sometimes and it makes people feel better when she feels worse with every ticking second. The day of the service her eyes dart wildly around the overcast sky looking for a plane or a familiar body in a black suit but he never comes.

She watches the rain pour from the ugly clouds that completely cover everything. A dark little shell resembling a domed snow globe with showers instead of fake snow, crying people across a field of well manicured grass instead of plastic ice skaters zooming across an ice rink. She cries with the rest of them, takes the opportunity to say nothing and avoids all meaningful glances and compassionate hugs.

And when everyone leaves she takes a long look at Meredith hunched over on her knees on the green blades with Izzie at her side and then drives away without a word to the tiny woman. There's nothing she can say to help anyway. She feels oddly free for the first time in months as the tires catch and peel out and there's a part of her brain that can't help but think she did this to herself. Pushed everyone away and now her victory feels hollow and worthless.

She ambles thoughtlessly along the highway, signals appropriately without thinking, manages the windshield wipers when the little drops turn into violent gusting streaks and arrives back at the empty hotel room and is in her bed around the gray t-shirt before she can understand what's going on. She's thankful that Derek's family is so immersed in themselves, knowing she can just get some time now, after the chaotic swirl of children asking questions and going along for the sake of going along. Her phone trills in the background and she heaves herself from the bed fully prepared to have some form of conversation but her hand hits the wrong button and it's transferred to voicemail.

The voicemail she hasn't touched in months because she's been busy chasing kids and most people are smart enough to just call her again. She cuddles back into bed (this time taking the opportunity to kick out of her heels and remove the black cardigan that covers the chosen dark dress of the day) and turns on speakerphone as she holds down the 1 key. Voices snap up in a tango of memories- her missed doctor's appointment yesterday, Kathleen telling her their flight was delayed earlier in the week, Sam, Naomi, Naomi again, Naomi one more time and then Dell. She swipes at the dignified delete button within two seconds of hearing who it is. The message isn't really important. More Naomi, Savvy a few days back (who she literally ran from when she saw her today- as well as everyone else from her old life because she had no desire to explain the monumental proportions of fail that are consuming her at present), a few more unrelated work calls, Ellie's school telling her that the girl has been missing for a few days and then Mark's voice comes on.

His angry tone telling her that she should pick up her damn phone once in awhile so he can know where she is. It sounds possessive but she knows he was genuinely worried; he has been the entire time. He was certainly right when he said she should delete them all before listening. There are choice swear words, shouts and a screaming Kennedy in the background. She pushes through them but doesn't delete because she has no idea if she'll ever hear from him again.

More calls from Ellie's school about her blasé and at times violent attitude towards life, more friends calling to check in, a purposely avoided phone call from her mother and Derek. Dead Derek on her phone telling her he is in Los Angeles for the weekend and wants to see her. He throat seizes and she skips it as soon as her fingers fumble to the phone lying on her chest. When she's about to give up for the night Reagan's voice reverberates through the phone. She can hear her panting and shouting above the radio in the car and Pierce in the distance telling her to calm down- her telling him to drive faster.

She's smiling, tears are forming but she's smiling, authentically for the first time this week. It feels good to hear her. It hurts at the same time but she screams of home and reassurance in her demands. It's comforting in a way she can't explain other than maybe masochism but whatever it is keeps her listening until the message finishes and then another comes on. Five in all. Progressively less frantic and angry- the first one actually kind of pleasant simply asking that she meet them at the hospital so they can get the show on the road. She lets the liquid cascade down her face. The tears jolt out of their carefully crafted cage for all of the missing people in her life that are momentarily captured on her phone.

Little snippets of the past and she knows, finally knows, this is not her fault. It may be all frustratingly out of control but she couldn't have saved any of them; she can only save herself. A few more hitched breaths and little weak sobs and she ends the call, pulls Mark's shirts across the bed and breathes in the rapidly depleting scent. Impulsively she grabs her phone and dials. It rings seven times and she's greeted by a cold distant voice telling her that Dr. Mark Sloan is unavailable and to please leave a message so he can call back. It's not the voice she wanted so there's a brief ten second gap in her message as her mind tries to think of something to say.

"Hi…it's me…Addison. I don't really know what to say here…I-I…hope you're-okay…call me, please," she pauses, "Please just call."

* * *

Mark's eyes dizzily try to focus on where the noise is coming from but he decides to let it go. It's just his cell phone vibrating somewhere in the other room and he doesn't care anymore. He's busy watching. The white explosion of the waves crashing captivates him and entrances his body that is curled up around the blue sleeping bag instead of in it. With a ragged breath that reeks of a mouth that has been subjected to gallons of liquor in the last week and no tooth brush he slowly slips his eyes closed.

He listens to the commotion outside his door, hears the light rain splatter against the glass and knows he has never felt more alone than in this moment.

* * *


	30. Puts on a smile and breathes it in

A/N: Thirty whole damn chapters, most of it pretty heavy angsty stuff, so thanks to everyone for still reading. This is not too bad, heart breaking wise, I don't think so enjoy and thanks to Hannah for looking it over while stuck under a mountain of schoolwork.

**_--_**  
**_Bad day, looking for a way_**  
**_Oh, looking for the great escape_**  
**_Gets in his car and drives away_**  
**_Far from all the things that we are_**  
**_Puts on a smile and breathes it in and breathes it out_**  
**_He says bye-bye, bye to all of the noise_**  
**_Oh he says bye-bye, bye to all of the noise_**  
_- Patrick Watson, "The Great Escape"_  
**_--_**

"So when were you going to tell us?" Sandra asks with a hand on her hip as the rest of her family faces forward, handing off their many pounds of luggage to a rather ragged looking uniformed airport worker. He grunts in disapproval as more bags are placed in front of him and he is forced over and over to ask if anything is locked.

"Tell you what?" Addison asks wearily two days after Derek's funeral. She hasn't heard from Mark. She hasn't called him again. Honestly, aside from throwing up on occasion and staring at the blank TV screen in her room she hasn't done a whole hell of a lot…until now and she may have temporarily forgotten to put on the happy face. She feels out of practice, for what she is unsure but the 'normal in charge, go-to Addison' has been replaced by 'shy, don't look at me Addison' and the change is unsettling and irrepressible. She thinks that this maybe the new Addison, it is at least the one that has been sticking around for awhile now.

"Oh come on Addie, the rest of the family may be naïve but it's me." Nancy agrees turning around from her place three feet up. She catches the attention of Kathleen and her husband and soon the whole clan is impatiently staring her down.

"Fine. I'm-I'm pregnant." She stammers making eye contact with no one. Her fingers wrap around the black clutch in her hand and her hair falls into her line of sight when she dips down to check out her heels.

"Admitting it is the first step." Kathleen gripes looking over her five kids, "I knew there was something weird going on with you. Unbutton your coat. I could use the pick-me-up of you getting fat for once."

Addison shakes her head and fiddles with the large round buttons instead. "Well, if Mark thinks he can skip town on his child and not get a call from his mother he is absolutely wrong. I don't care if he is hurting, that's unacceptable." Susan announces.

"Ummm…well…the thing is- they aren't exactly his." Addison mumbles trying her hardest not to choke on her tongue or start an airport brawl. She seriously thought she was scraping by here and no one was going to notice but before she can react Nancy's hands are on the front of her coat and she gives a triumphant "ah-ha!" looking her up and down. Addison reaches wildly for the sides of the warm fabric and tugs it back around her waist praying that at least someone in the vicinity isn't watching the Shepherd's play Clue. It was her with Derek in the hotel room. No big surprise.

"Well we expect to meet the father. You may have done some horrible things Addison but you're family. You'll always be family." Susan remarks trying her best not to grimace when she thinks about what happened to her son, although it is nice to have her focus changed somewhere else for moment. Grieving is exhausting.

Addison keeps her eyes on the ground having a very fifth grader moment where she would like to run home and hide under her bed and still refuses to look up until Kathleen shouts, "Oh my god! You're having Derek's kid finally."

People turn instantly and watch the horde of Shepherds amp the volume but it's not until Maggie gives her shoulder a light squeeze that she can look up. "Guys can we not do this here?" She asks and then glances at her mother. Maggie was always the most sympathetic one which often lead to tears everywhere but she genuinely felt other's pain and for once Addison is pleased with her presence.

Kathleen looks at her watch, "We have time for lunch."

"We have about 23 people too. What do you propose we do about that genius?"

Nancy shrugs, always thankful she only has one child, and retorts the problem fix quickly, "Food court. The kids can all sit together and I'm sure the men would rather dig their eyes out with plastic spoons than have this conversation."

"True." Kyle affirms, hands around the brunette's waist.

"Then it's settled, "Kathleen states trying to get significant other's attention, "The men will take the kids to get something to eat and we will all try a restaurant out here, okay?"

Joshua turns around facing the multitudes of cranky and already tired children, "Who is hungry?" Hands shoot up and mouths begin to complain before he can announce that they need to finish handing over luggage and make their way through security. He grumbles and turns back to his wife as if to say that she owes him but the women have already stomped away in search of a place to interrogate.

**_--_**

"So you and Derek were getting back together?" Sandra asks carefully stirring the white straw in her ice tea. Aside from Addison she is the only one not drinking anything alcoholic though god only knows how much the red head would kill to toss back a few shots and loosen up.

"No." Addison shakes her head and toys with the red napkin spread across her lap. It's paper and completely unnecessary but some habits die hard and she's in the company of others so she may as well be as proper as possible especially since she is completely befuddled on how to behave around her once in-laws.

"This happened before the divorce?" Maggie tries to clarify and Addison's cheeks grow a deep shade of red at the implication of talking about possible conception dates.

"No."

"I'm confused." The tallest of the bunch announces and then drifts off to find a waiter who will actually take their order instead of passing by the table every ten minutes gawking.

"Girls, it doesn't matter." Susan sips at her surprising choice of white wine in the afternoon and rubs a hand over Addison's left palm that still rests carefully in her lap, "I'm getting another grandchild and it doesn't really matter-"

"Grandchildren." Addison elucidates and somehow feels entirely worse about there being two instead of one. If she had given any thought to the situation then she probably would have had five or seven minor freak outs by now but as it stands she's still pretty uninterested in the miracle she thought she was never going to achieve. It's more of a torture device it seems anyway. A constant reminder of everything else that will never happen.

"Twins!" Nancy squeals and Addison nods.

"Well you can't be that far along." Kathleen retorts and pauses when she gets no response "Can you?"

"I don't- I can't…remember."

"You can't remember?" Sandra asks in awe.

"Well let's think here. Morning sickness?" Nancy begins to run down her mental check list.

"Sometimes still, not so much anymore."

"Well then you're probably headed or into the second trimester. Oh the second-"

Kathleen smacks her sister's arm and then shrugs when Susan glares at them. "I want to say sixteen weeks," Addison begins, "but I-I don't know. I…can't remember." She feels like the world's worst mother already and her hands inadvertently drift toward the small bump trying to apologize for her downfalls before they can even hear her voice.

"Sixteen? No, no. There's no way. Multiples- with my twins-"

"You were a whale, we know the story Kathleen." Nancy continues and looks Addison over again, "You don't look happy about this."

"How can she be happy? Derek's dead. No one is happy, god Nancy. " Maggie gapes and tears fill her eyes again.

Susan lightly rubs her daughter's shoulders, "Girls…please, just stop. Stop. Addison can be happy or sad or any medium in between as long as she's healthy and the babies are healthy."

Addison looks up as her ex-mother in-law as the question non-verbally that everyone is thinking presents itself in inept fashion. She bites the inside of her cheek hard and then does her best to answer, "They're fine. They looked good at my last appointment."

"Heart rate? Approximate size?"

"I don't- I can't remember Nancy."

"Well there were no placental concerns right? You would remember-"

"Shut up!" Sandra breaks in. "Shut up. Just shut up Nancy."

They fall silent again, straws stirring drinks, eyes fixed toward the table until Addison stands, playing with the hem of her jacket. "It was nice to see everyone again and-"

"You think you are getting off that easy?" Nancy questions angrily.

"I don't understand what you want Nancy."

"I want to know that you are doing everything in your power to keep my nieces or nephews safe and secure until they are in the real world."

Addison takes a deep breath, "I'm doing my best and for you to imply otherwise is-"

"I'm not implying anything. I'm worried and that's my right as an Aunt and as your friend and…sister. I get to be worried." The others stare on as she corners Addison in between the short partial wall and the table. "I saw you after…just please don't be stupid."

"I won't. I'm not."

"That's all I'm asking." Instead of stepping aside Nancy pushes forward and wraps her arms around the redhead whispering, "I'm begging Addison…please."

They pull back with Addison responding and she takes a brief moment to straighten the snug skirt on her hips before bidding goodbye to the family she has already lost. Maggie cries, Susan rubs her back, Kathleen wants her to call, Sandra tries to smile and Nancy is the only one that knows what a danger Addison poses to herself. It was Nancy who saw the destruction of the Shepherd marriage and of the affair and how well that was "handled". Nancy has been the one who was coaching her brother on the ways to get Addison back though she had no idea why, she merely thought that he had come to his senses, nothing this dramatic.

Wandering through the endless sea of travelers after dashing from their presence Addison stops. Stands still in the bustle of suitcases being drug along and children whining. Her eyes watch all of the lights on the arrivals/departure boards and she knows she isn't going anywhere. It takes a busy man in a suit to literally knock her back into reality.

"Oh shit, I am sorry, so…so sorry." He rambles, bending over to pick up the dropped cell phone. He finds the call already disconnected and looks up surprised. "Addison?"

"You remembered." She replies softly wondering how in the world this fits in to what she is supposed to be doing.

"Of course I remembered. I, uh, I called you but I never heard back. How has your trip to Seattle been?"

"Surprising." She nods and stuffs her hands inside her coat pocket in fear of fidgeting in front of the tall man.

"Surprising good or surprising bad?"

"Bad." She blurts out immediately regretting the decision to share with a guy who for all she knows could be stalking her at this point.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He looks around her, "Alone?"

"Very much so."

"Well, listen I am headed back out to LA but when you get in you should give me a call sometime. I think this is fate or something. I mean we keep running into each other that has to mean something, right?"

She bobs her head politely as he pulls out another business card for her to stash away.

"Goodbye Addison." He leans in and kisses her check swiftly before she can pull away.

"Bye Ken."

**_--_**

"I want my job back. It's not like you have filled the position Richard, I wouldn't even be stepping on anyone's toes. You'd be lucky to have me." She finishes rambling and tries to stride the room confidently until she is facing him in the chair across from his desk.

"Addie, it's not that I don't want to give you the job. I- are you sure-"

"I need this Richard." She nods. Another speech about needing things except this time she is damn certain he won't advise she go out and get a life because so far that hasn't panned out very well.

"I wish you didn't."

"Me too."

He sighs audibly and droops back into his chair folding fingers across fingers and squeezing them tight. The hospital hasn't been the same since Derek's death. Meredith wanders the halls like a ghost but refuses to go home even if all Miranda will do is let her chart and run labs. Izzie seems to be mourning all over again and he's certain if she keeps bursting into hysterics randomly he'll have to send her into therapy before the board notices. Karev is doing his level best to stay away from the mess as always and George has taken it upon himself to hold everyone together while Yang pretends nothing is different. "Addison, I can't. You need- I won't be responsible for you working yourself into the ground and avoiding reality."

"We'll make a deal. No more than 80 hours a week." She attempts, avoiding eye contact by looking over his right shoulder at the vibrant Pacific Northwest print.

"40."

"I can't do my paperwork in forty Richard. Be reasonable."

"60 and the second you go over I'm dragging you out of this hospital myself."

"Deal." She grins and sticks her hand forth trying to convince herself she knows exactly what she's doing. Someone had better.

He reluctantly places his hand in hers, letting her grip be stronger for a moment before they break apart. "I don't like this." He glares over at her.

She purses her lips fully prepared to retort sarcastically that Satan is back but stops herself and gasps in air instead.

"Addie…" Richard softens, "You don't have to do this."

"I want to." She gulps heavily.

He shakes his head trying to understand, "Just be careful."

She's tired of the blatant and cautious warnings. Her eyes narrow and her voice finds her mouth once again, "I always am."

His mouth opens to convey the wide range of stories that prove that statement false but he shuts it just as quickly. It's better that she remain self-assured even at the risk of complete delusion. Seconds later the caring, compassionate tone resonating from his throat catches him off guard but it's too late to stop. "If you need or want to talk to anyone…I'm here, Adele is here. I know we don't have any children or have any idea on how that would go but if you need anything…"

"All I need is my job." She retorts with a sly grin. "So let's meet the staff?"

She lets him lead her from the room reminded of the ways this resembles her first visit to Seattle. Her hair is straight and clipped back off her face, much unlike the bitchy curls she arrived in but she is however dressed solidly in black once again. It's not for the mourning but for the simple fact that the tight pencil skirt still fits, however uncomfortable, and the top she has that best covered her deep burning secret was also the only thing clean. He negotiates the halls and ducks out of people shouting questions in his direction. His eyes watch everything going on around him as Addison's occupy the tile in front of her softly clicking heels. Two minutes into their little stroll down memory lane his hand dashes out in front of her in a soccer-mom-save.

She startles and gapes as Richard's hands brush just below her breasts but looks up in time to see the reason why he reached out for her. If she had continued on the same course for three seconds longer she would have been run down by a fast paced gurney with one Cristina Yang on top of the patient working to save his damaged life.

"I told you to be careful." Richard growls low, so that they are only privy to the conversation. She doesn't respond but finally manages to peel her blue orbs from the reflecting white flecked tile until they are safely tucked into the elevator with none other than intern extraordinaire George O'Malley.

"Oh Dr. Montgomery." He stumbles looking surprise that she still even exists in the same world they share.

"Dr. O'Malley."

"Are you visiting?" He says carefully.

"Not exactly."

"Dr. Montgomery has returned to her position as head of Neonatal."

"Where's Dr. Sloan?" George blurts out and scuffs his show along the shiny metal wall kind of wishing it would swallow him whole. The redhead always makes him a little jittery.

"I'm not sure." Addison nods and fixes her gaze to the illuminated buttons. Why must this thing stop on every floor when no one ever gets on to save her?

"Well…it's…it's good to have you back. I'm sure Alex will be excited."

"Right." Addison snorts and then catches herself.

The doors ding and George literally flies from his spot. "O'Malley!" Chief Webber shouts as he tries to scamper free.

"Yeah?" George gulps.

"Don't say anything." He warns sternly.

"Ye-Yes…sir." He raises his hand and drops it rapidly deciding that a salute would be utterly uncalled for.

"I can't believe he's still an intern." Richard uncharacteristically mumbles once the doors slide closed again. Addison clears her throat nervously and prepares to make her return common knowledge.

She can do this. She needs this.

**_--_**

"He's in there?" Naomi asks looking at the closed door of one vacated Dr. Mark Sloan.

"He's in there." Violet confirms munching heartily on a piece of carrot.

"Are you a w-abbit now?" Cooper deadpans locking eyes with Violet, "What? What's going on?"

"He's here."

"Who's here?"

"He's here." Naomi retorts exhaustedly looking over a file. It's been a completely draining two weeks since Derek's death. She pretends she's fine, Sam pretends nothing happened and then at night they go at it like teenagers trying to make the pain disappear. She thought maybe he would finally see that time is being wasted and that they should be together but instead it appears to be the opposite. They don't talk. She doesn't want to know.

"Alright enough with the cryptic conversation. Someone tell me what's going on." Sam demands.

"Mark is here." Dell supplies and then looks back over the schedule for the day.

"Mark's here?" Pete asks joining the normal crew and saying the one thing everyone has been thinking for weeks, "I thought we got rid of the odd couple." He is met with a hard slap from Violet's carrot which is promptly deposited back into her mouth.

"Gross Vi." Cooper grins. That's his girl. Well, not his girl but almost his girl. They're still playing the weird flirting not interested game but he's on the cusp of something, he can feel it.

"Someone has to go in there." Pete mentions rubbing his certainly swelling arm.

"Maybe we should give him time." Naomi inserts, trying to keep her eyes down away from her ex-husband.

"Not it!" Violet shouts suddenly.

"What are you doing?" Sam asks.

"Not it. Whenever you figure out who is going in there it's not me. I'm taking myself out of the race."

"Not it!" Cooper suddenly follows.

"Not it." Naomi mumbles and Sam soon agrees confused.

"Looks like it's you Pete."

"But the kid-"

"Not it." Dell shakes his head. This is childish. This is his job.

"Oh you really want me to go in there?"

"Snooze you lose Wilder." Violet saunters off happily munching and the rest of the group filters into the conference room for the morning meeting in which they daily accomplish nothing.

"What could I possibly say to him? We haven't spoken outside of bets and beers ever."

"Stop stalling." Dell shakes his head half heartedly.

**_--_**

"Dr. Montgomery!" Izzie screeches and then warmly embraces the slightly taller woman. "Are you back? It feels like you're back! She's back right?"

"I'm back." Addison nods.

"Oh thank God. This place has gone to hell in a hand basket. I mean this one woman…well nurse really-the other day-"

"Dr. Stevens." Richard cautions.

"Oh right. See you around Dr. Montgomery, it's good to have you back." Izzie gracelessly leaves the premises.

Richard presses forward, "Last year's group of interns."

"I know."

"They're going to be the death of me." He swings the door wide to the nursery and begins to show Addison the minor changes that have occurred in the last four or so months. He always knew she'd come back, he just didn't know that he wouldn't want here there because watching her float around mindlessly is really going to be the thing that sends him to the grave early. His Addison, his bright and talented, full of life surgeon is now a pale wisp of a person who he isn't entirely convinced can run this department again. Maybe he should have given her chief, god knows he doesn't want it anymore.

He leaves her minutes later, taking with him the last intern that was checking on a diaper clad infant. He watches her briefly through the window for a moment before deciding she's okay to find the office he never designated to another in preparation of her return. She runs her fingers along the incubator staring at the bright eyes of some nameless baby.

There's no feeling. A nice numbing antiseptic has taken over the allocated spot in her heart that once longed to be a mother. Now she just feels sorry for the children, the children who, had she any presence of mind these days, would have realize are actually living and will need love and attention as soon as they come into the world. For now there's nothing. Nothing while she adjusts the little wires and tubes that are trying to tangle around each other, nothing while she sticks her finger in the baby's weak grasp. This one won't make it through the night.

While she watches the newborn struggle she can't help but think that Derek would have been good at this. Derek would have known what to do with his kids; with her.

**_--_**

"So Mark…good to see you man." Pete announces loudly hoping that Mark will lift his head off the table where he seems to have tried to bury it in his arms.

"Turn off the light for fuck's sake."

"Ok." Pete flips the switch again letting the room be engulfed by temporary dimness. He then sits in the chair opposite the desk waits praying that by some miracle Mark will volunteer information worthy enough of Pete getting back to his own life. Silence. "I heard about-"

"Don't." Mark replies angrily. He's still hung-over…well somewhere in the odd peril of still drunk and on the way to really hung-over. He eased up the last week on the alcohol but was still living in a blissfully spinning, muffled world.

"So what brings you in?"

"Thought I'd do some paperwork." Mark smirks and drops the pen that was dangling from his careless fingers.

"Ok." Pete stands, "Well, I'll leave you to it." He heads for the door slowly.

"Your wife is dead." Pete turns back and chokes a little and then coughs to cover it. "Addison mentioned it once."

Pete makes a mental note to slap the redhead when he sees her again. If he sees her again. "Yes."

"What's her name?"

Pete smiles fondly at Mark's use of present tense. He'll learn. "Anna. Her name was Anna."

"Nice name." Mark replies softly and spins his chair around leisurely to look out the window. "Does it stop?"

Pete breathes deeply anticipating. They always want to know and he never shares. Now it's time. "Does what stop?"

"The hurt."

Pete tilts his head back and forth uneasily. "No. It…uh…it gets bearable…or it…it just becomes a constant that you don't notice but-"

"Okay." That's all he needs. Knowledge to get a game plan in order.

"Okay." They pause. Mark watching the foot traffic and cars outside on the street and Pete watching Mark. He's not going to tell him about everything. Hell, he's not even entirely convinced that what he feels is consistent with what other's feel about death and mourning. Maybe people actually move on with their lives instead of freezing in time and being forced to keep up with society's tempo. "Well, I'm glad to have you back."

"Poker." Mark mumbles to the people outside.

"Yeah we can set that up. I'll talk to Sam and Cooper and get back to you." Mark nods and Pete disappears to deliver the news of absolute nothing to his coworkers.

**_--_**

"What are we going to do?" Cooper asks pensively eyeing the rest of the members huddled into the break room. Naomi spears the poor tortured piece of cheesecake in front of her again and nearly bites Violet's hand when her utensil comes too close. Cheesecake equals healing, everyone knows that…except Violet.

"There's nothing we can do. He's not running around causing trouble, he's not trying to treat patients, leave the man be." Sam supplies over the rim of his coffee cup. He's sure to have another conversation regarding this subject as soon as he and Naomi stumble into whoever's home.

"We have to do something." Naomi argues her mouth full of taste bud tantalizing dessert. She pointedly looks at Violet who glares.

"Why? Why is it my job to keep fixing the wackos you hire without consulting anyone? Maybe we should do a psych eval. before just picking up random doctors off the street next time, eh?"

Nobody shrieks in concern or tries to chastise Violet for her outburst. These days it almost resembles a good idea. "Violet please."

The curly headed psychiatrist mumbles something under her breath, tosses the fork in the sink, satisfied with the way it clatters loudly against the other flower bordered plates and coffee cups and then shuffles to the dark office down the hall. She enters without knocking and plops down in front of Mark who has returned his head to his hands, this time on a stack of papers. "They want me to talk to you."

"You don't want to talk to me." He mumbles not lifting his head.

"Not particularly." She nods, "You want to talk?"

"No."

"Ok then." Violet reclines her legs, bare heels, from the discarded neon green flip flops on the floor, barely able to reach the edge of the desk. She waits. After a good estimation of ten minutes she closes her eyes and slouches a little more against the cozy chair. Mark has good taste in office furniture even if the rest of the place is barren, she notes.

He finally lifts his head, eyes rimmed red, nose glowing brightly in protest of congestion and sees his co-worker passed out and snoring lightly three feet away. He sheepishly brushes his eyes, feebly wishing she would wake up and call him out on crying at his desk; that someone would just tell him to buck up already but instead he gets coddling and ignorance. He exits the room without Violet waking up and he decides that walking home is probably a better option than waiting for a cab out in the sun.

He slips into the elevator unnoticed, shoulders aching, feet awkward and eyes burning. When he finally reaches the pavement the hot smell of the smog is enough to make him want to heave every ounce of alcohol that he has consumed in the last few days into the closest receptacle possible. His shoes pound the sidewalk, not caring that on one foot is a black loafer and on the other is an obviously untied blue and white Nike. His jeans are wrinkled and musty from having been lived in for the last four days straight and there's a coffee stain from this morning's endeavors on his navy Yankees t-shirt.

If he was paying attention to anything other than the gurgle of his stomach and hammering of his head then he would notice the small gaggle of women staring him down as he passes by an outdoor restaurant and that the freaky girl on the street corner with her music blaring too loud from her iPod headphones is clearly trying to tell him that he smells. He hasn't shaved in over two weeks and his hair could probably stand to be cut as well. Managing a shower a handful of times and brushing his teeth about the same amount he is a sight to behold. A lost soul, mindlessly shuffling along city blocks, weaving in and out of crosswalks, toward his beach home that holds only the promise of a quick fix for the chronic pain plaguing his life.

**_--_**

"I can't believe you are staying, not that I'm not happy to have you but…still." Callie states looking over her limp salad to Addison who is thoughtlessly stirring her decaf coffee into a tornado of swirls. "You really think this is a good choice?"

"Yeah." Addison replies not looking up. After a few days of people getting over the initial shock, she has fallen into a steady routine of patients, papers, ignorant interns and babies right and left.

"Okay. Wanna go grab a drink later? I mean…you can't drink…but I could drink enough for both of us. It's been that kind of week."

"I know."

"Sorry." Callie sighs and shakes her raven locks out through her fingers, "Ugh! I suck at this. I just suck at not sticking my foot in my mouth."

"Don't worry about it." Addison reassures and pours another packet of sugar into the lukewarm mess in front of her. At this point she's not even going to bother drinking it but she may as well have some fun until then.

"Wanna go shopping? Retail therapy?"

Addison's eye briefly light up recalling the last time she went shopping she was decorating rooms in her house thousands of miles away for children who she hasn't spoken to in weeks. Last she heard Kennedy was discharged to her father and that's all she knows. "I think I'm just going to stay in tonight."

"You said that last night. I know you are all Mopey dwarf and what not but I need to go spend money. I need to do something, you know?" Addison nods but doesn't reply verbally, "And I hate to mention this but you are starting to put some weight on-"

"Cal!" Addison shrieks.

"Well, I'm just saying you aren't going to be able to conceal the little secret the entire hospital knows about for very much longer in anything that you already own."

"I'm not fat." Addison whines, falling back into a give and take game with her friend.

"Oh, I don't know about that." Callie teases.

"Yeah, well not all of us were born with a rocking set of hips that can hide what I have going on okay?"

"Are you hitting on me?"

"What! No."

"Geesh…relax spaz, I was just kidding…oh, and look you do know how to smile! And I know you wish you had my ass but not everyone is blessed with all this." Callie smiles brightly slapping her thigh. Since the break up of George and Izzie and her recent one night stand with Dr. Karev her spirits have been lifted considerably. She has no sweet clue as to what she is doing but as long as Alex keeps making her squirm and scream, she couldn't care less.

"I hate you." Addison pouts.

"You love me." Callie replies seriously, "I'm the only friend you've got here."

"I have Miranda." Addison retorts, looking morosely over her coffee. She pushes it forward with a dissatisfied frown, "This is disgusting. I hate decaf."

"I don't know why you bother. I would die if I was pregnant."

"Say it a little louder why don't you. I don't think the patients in the ER heard you."

"You are paranoid. Besides it's been circulating through these stupid high school like cliques faster than that syphilis outbreak we had last year. People know. Let go of the dream." Callie points and takes another bite of the best thing in the cafeteria.

"I don't, I can't handle people asking me stupid baby questions and I don't want to talk about…" She drops her voice, "Derek and what happened that night…I just can't right now." She pushes a few strands of loose wavy hair behind her left ear, "I feel like I am walking around wearing a scarlet letter or something."

"Wasn't that for-"

"You get the point." Addison intrudes looking over her shoulder, trying to escape the wandering eyes of the hospital. The buzzing of her cell phone in her white lab coat breaks the red in her cheeks from shimmering too fiercely. She holds her finger up to Callie and shrugs as the ear piece is firmly attached to her ear. "Hello?"

"Addie." Naomi states grimly.

"Hey Nae."

"Hi." Naomi shirks out of her office and makes a beeline for the elevator.

"Nae?" Addison taps her phone checking the reception, "You there?"

"I'm here. I just had to get out of the office. Sorry." She jabs at the buttons on the panel willing it to hurry up. Her keys jangle in her other hand as she impatiently taps her heels on the floor.

"What's…not that it's not nice to hear from you Nae but-"

"You need…we need…can you come here?"

"What?"

"Come back. Come home. I need you to come back. Okay, just come back." She rattles off flustered. So very un-Naomi like.

"What? Nae…slow down. What's wrong? What's happening?" Callie straightens up in her seat, perceptibly interested in the conversation.

"Nothing is wrong. We just- I need you to come here. Can you come here?"

"Naomi, you aren't making any sense."

"I'm making sense!" Naomi shouts into her phone as she paces to her car. "It makes sense." She lowers her voice again as a passerby scrutinizes her oddly.

"From where I'm sitting, it does not make sense."

"Then get the damn rain out of your ears and listen to me for once."

Addison shakes her head confused and sighs in a very mother-esc tone. "Now Nae, you know I can't help you if you don't tell me what is going on. Use your words."

"Stop patronizing me."

"You weren't-stop. This conversation is ridiculous. I am not coming back; I don't need to come back. I have a job here that needs tending to so if you'll excuse me this was a pleasure-"

"Fuck you." Naomi grits her teeth.

"What!"

"You heard me."

"Naomi, what is wrong with you?"

"You wanna know what's wrong with me?" Addison affirms and Naomi slams her car door shut, turning over the ignition a second later. "What's wrong is I am on my way to your house because the police are there. Something about someone tripping the alarm, although if I had to guess I would say it was Mark."

"He's there?"

"Yes." She signals and enters the busy street aggravated that she has to keep cleaning other people's problems.

"I told him to go- I thought he was going to Massachusetts."

"Well he didn't. He's here. Here and drunk for the last three weeks."

"He's working drunk?" Callie tunes in again, amused by the silly scenarios streaming through her head.

"No, he's not working. He's not doing anything. He comes in in the morning and sits in his dark office all day and then he leaves and goes god knows where and does god knows what."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So can you come?"

"I don't know what you expect me to do Naomi. He's…we aren't together…we aren't anything." Her heart pinches a little at the realization because for as busy as she's been, Mark and his absence aren't things that she lets herself think about a lot. In fact outside of patients and charts she doesn't let her mind wander at all. It's safer this way. Emotions can be controlled; Addison can be controlled if she tries hard enough. There will be no breaking down. There is no one to stand beside her and sweep up the mess anymore.

"Well be something and get your ass down here."

"I have work."

"I'm your boss."

"You fired me, remember?"

"I sent you on leave which considering you should be kind of grateful. I have been more than wonderful with your situation-"

"My situation?"

"The kids, the crying, the Mark thing, the Der-…thing, the pregnancy thing." She honks her horn loudly as someone cuts her off and swears under her breath. Today is not a day to fuck with Naomi.

"I know I haven't been myself and for that I'm truly sorry Nae but I'm not-"

Naomi takes a deep breath and sets her mind straight. "Listen, Addie, I know…this is hard. I know that you are hurting and I know you didn't have any real chance to recover from the last time life brought you down to your knees and you know that I love you like the sister I never had but this is not about you. Not about you. Mark needs someone."

"Then go be his someone." Addison chortles, though her anger is obvious.

"I'm not his someone. Sam is not his someone; Pete no matter how hard he tries can not be his someone. He needs you."

"What about what I need?" She asks calmly trying to keep her demeanor in check, completely aware that she is sitting in the cafeteria.

"Not everything is about you."

"You make me sound like the world's most self involved person Naomi."

Naomi takes a deep breath. "Addison, I'm going to go inform the police that the homeless man on your front porch is indeed a close family friend and then I will be expecting to pick you up at the airport."

"You aren't- I'm not coming." She defies adamantly.

"You are."

"This is absolutely ridiculous. I make my own decisions and as such I will not be leaving Seattle to what? What would I even do? I can't drink with him, I can't make the world stop hurting him, I can't bring him back, I can't do anything!"

"The problem here is that you have convinced yourself that you are stuck in every situation life puts you in. This isn't my Addison, this isn't anyone's Addison. Pull it together." Naomi slams the phone shut and storms out of her car, Mark's somber and yet not relieved look catching her eyes. He's too pretty to go to jail, there's no telling whose bitch he would be and that's unfair even to the man who cheats on her best friend with her best friend's dead ex-husband's dirty intern mistress. "Mark."

"You know this man ma'am?" One uniformed officer asks putting himself in between the two in case.

"Yes."

"Are you Dr. Addison Montgomery?" The cop looks her over carefully.

"No."

"Who are you then?"

"Dr. Naomi Bennett. I'm a friend. Addison is in Seattle but she's flying in later." Mark's eyes dance up at her and she can't contain small grin, "And I can assure you that both she and I have known the grizzly mountain man behind you for almost twenty years. In fact he lives right down the road so…" She tosses her hair over her shoulder semi-seductively, "we don't have a problem here do we?"

"Uh-…Well, I'd prefer to speak with the house owner."

"She should be here within the next 24 hours. I could have her call you and confirm-"

"No, no. We'll just…we'll check back in with her later. Do you want him or would you like us to escort him off the premises."

"I'll handle it." She handles everything these days anyway. She watches as they disappear back into the squad car and turn off the swirling lights before slowing backing out of the short driveway. "What the hell were you thinking Mark?"

"I have a key." He waves the shiny silver in the air. "But I didn't know Addie had an alarm, we never used it when…I was here."

"What are you doing?" Naomi asks and slides onto the porch step beside him.

"I don't know anymore."

**_--_**

She's not exactly sure what prompted her scheduling an early weekend and clearing her patients for the day so she could hop on another plane headed directly for a place she has no interest in being. Perhaps it was the short and demanding tone Naomi used, maybe it was a piqued interest, or maybe she generally doesn't like to see Mark hurting even if she can't do anything about it. But nevertheless here she sits, strapped in tightly as the descent starts to kick in and her stomach flops around like wobbly Jell-O. The dusky city lights invade the small window next to her as the plane gently lowers itself toward the ground. She doesn't know what she'll say but she figures at least she can box up some clothes and personal belongings to take back to Seattle with her. It can be a functional trip.

When the neon glows too bright and the soft yellows turn into overbearing bright whites her eyes cloud over with tears. This is not how things were supposed to go when she moved here those few short months ago. This is not the life she pictured for herself when she was boxing up her old hotel room. There was supposed to be more sun than pollution, more smiles than tears, more free time and less stress but far be it for her to have dreams any more. They land with a roaring thud and gravity pushes her hard into the seat and back into the reality of not throwing a pity party in a very public place. She tells herself to stop acting like a child and forces a small smile onto her lips when the man next to her tenderly hands her the tiny carry on she packed for the weekend.

After the first stop at her own house turns up fruitless she thanks the cab driver (she has decided she isn't speaking to Naomi at the moment), tips him and unlocks the door to her house, mind racing and heart thumping to remember the simple code that will keep the security company happy. Finally unset she flips on all the lights and walks determined into the kitchen plucking her car keys from the counter. Not the silver stupid SUV that eats more gas than any other vehicle that she has ever owned, this occasion calls for the hasty split decision red convertible buy. The engine purrs and growls as she makes her way back out onto the street under the dark cover of night. Approximately one minute later she's there and immediately wishes she were somewhere else.

She knocks lightly on the door and gets no response. So she tries more forcefully only to receive nothing again. She locates the doorbell and rings it relentlessly before calling out his name. "God damn it Mark, open the door, it's freezing out here!" Wrapping the light shawl tighter around her shoulders she returns to a sporadic partnering of doorbell chimes and harsh knocks until the door cracks open. She steps in tentatively trying to find the hands that turned the shiny knob.

He's slouched up against the hallway wall staring at the ground wearing the same thing he's had on for days. "Mark…" She whispers feeling the impact of his presence with suddenly very moist eyes. He doesn't reply, merely jams his hands into the dirty, grimy jeans pockets. "I-I…don't know what to say." Her voice cracks and she hates that he always reduces her to this. That he can always drag out everything that she is feeling and force her to live outside of the mask she has spent years constructing so that she can hide away from the world when she needs to. She hates that he knows everything she's thinking, wanting, needing and then at times blatantly ignores it and tries to sleep with none other than Meredith Grey (that was a fun discovery).

"I'm numb." He says softly.

"You're drunk." She corrects.

"And yet it still hurts everywhere." He regards her carefully. Eyes tracing the familiar curve of her jaw, the softness of her pink cheeks, the blue of her eyes. He can't believe he's lost her yet again to his own idiocy no less but he wouldn't be Mark if he didn't fuck up every single good thing about his life in fear of it walking away on its own.

"I know."

He leaves her in the entryway and saunters into the dining room where his sleeping bag is living. What he isn't saying, what he'll never say is that this is the last birthday present Derek ever gave him. Not the last one he ever received but those were always from DerekandAddison, this is just Derek. The navy blue, warm sleeping bag of tortured memories and lost lives. He unzips the side and spreads it out on the hardwood floor not bothering to turn on the lights. There's enough seeping in from the place where Addison is standing. Without hesitation he lies down on his side facing the particularly angry ocean, using his arm as a pillow. He can't see the waves but they are there, they are always there and he takes stock in knowing that. In a world where everything else seems to be flipped upside down some things, namely Mother Nature, is exactly the same.

Some time later he notices that Addison is in front of him. She's tucked herself under his chin and nudged back into his chest thoughtfully draping his hand over her hip just like they used to sleep. Her calves and feet are tangled in between his and his elbow is wet from the tears the material beneath them has been soaking up for who knows how long. He didn't hear her sniffling or feel her chest convulsing against his earlier but he can feel her shaking now from the cold of a house that hasn't had the heat turned up since he's been back. He has no other blankets and he has no idea what's in the boxes that he'd rather not look in so he settles for scooting them both back and reaching down to pull as much of the sleeping bag over her as possible.

Then he watches. Watches her rising and falling breaths, her shining red hair glow from the hall light behind them and feels the way she still tries to completely mold her body to his when they are together. He let this all go for a stupid score in an on call room and he doesn't know if he'll ever get it back. He certainly doesn't deserve her anymore.

Hours later when his mind becomes fuzzy with sleep and his eyes dare to close he merely kisses the top of her head and falls into a restless pattern dreaming that she'll be there in the morning.

She's his only hope.

**_--_**

* * *


	31. Life is going to dim my temptation

A/N: Addison is kind of stagnant and static in this and Mark is just like broken, I don't know...that's what they wanted to do. Thanks to Hannah for reading it through. Enjoy-

**_  
--_**  
**_Time is gonna take my mind_**  
**_And carry it far away where I can fly_**  
**_The depth of life will dim my temptation to live for you_**  
**_If I were to be alone silence would rock my tears_**  
**_Cause it's all about love and I know better_**  
**_How life is a waving feather_**  
**_So I put my arms around you around you_**  
**_And I know that I'll be leaving soon_**  
_- Elisa, "Dancing"_  
**_--_**

It takes Mark all of a half second to realize that he is, indeed, very alone this morning when he awakens to the bright light streaming into his eyes and his arm asleep under his own head. He closes the sagging eyelids that barely block out the sun and groans low and long. He carefully rolls onto his back feeling his body protest in violent rage because of the new angle. Stretching his calves he rubs his temples and tries to overcome the diluted haze. He's either going to need coffee or liquor again. And quickly.

His sigh is frighteningly audible and he does it again for the effect remembering how good it felt a few short hours ago to have another body pressed warmly up against his. How comforting it felt, even though they were both far from being cleared of any and all anguish. Something light lands on his chest and his heart skips a beat when he sees the plain white t-shirt. "Addie?"

"Sorry buddy." Pete replies. "Just me."

"Ugh." Mark grunts. He doesn't have to ask, he knows Pete will tell him everything he wants to hear.

"Addison called me and told me to come try and coax you into a shower and some breakfast and she…she's at her house I think but she won't tell me for how long so let's get you up and ready for the day so you can go see her, eh?"

Mark swallows the gross, cotton-mouth feeling overwhelming his mouth. He peels his tongue from the roof of his mouth slowly like a label off an old plastic container. The taste he has going on is similar to that of old greasy nachos and black licorice, neither of which he has eaten in months. "I don't need a babysitter."

"Hey, I was just bringing you a shirt as a friend. Do whatever you want." Pete shrugs and edges away. The fact that he lives the farthest away out of everyone didn't seem to deter Addison this morning and truth be told, even though she has one hundred pound luggage, he'd still do anything she asks. His chances appear to be shot but that doesn't mean he can't dream a little…or a lot, not that he'd admit it to anyone. And he knows that whatever circumstances that lead Mark and Addison back here separately are not something he would have allowed if he was by her side. He's not a serial monogamist for nothing.

"Ok." Mark tries to stand but his knees buckle and he crashes hard into the wood flooring. He refuses Pete's hand when it juts out and he eventually rises on his own, head spinning, stomach gurgling. He's going to vomit. That much is clear. It's all a matter of where.

He makes it into the kitchen but misses the sink and garbage can, leading to the counter. Pete turns away, waiting for the smell to hit where he stands ten feet back but he doesn't expect to see Mark sloppily slouch forward, letting his cheek come to a rest in a puddle of gross liquid. Clearly this is worse than they all thought. "Come on man." Pete urges. He pats Mark's back and gets him moving up the stairs and stands at the bottom just to make sure he doesn't waver and tumble (not that Pete could stop the movement as Mark is much bigger than him but still it would look better if anyone found out). When he hears the shower he slowly begins the task of cleaning. He steals an almost empty garbage bag from one of the boxes in the entry way, dumping old baseball cards, an ashtray shaped like a shoe, and a tattered textbook out onto the cardboard box beneath it. Then he meticulously searches the house for bottles, half full, quarter full, empty- he's taking them all. Operation- "Sober Mark Up" begins now.

Once the black bag is filled to the brim, broken edges of glass trying to pierce through the plastic, Pete sets out to find some sort of cloth to handle this puke situation. He reluctantly grabs a shirt that has definitely seen better days out of what he presumes would be the living room provided there was any furniture in this place to begin with. Stomach contents cleared from the cooking area and the bag of bottles taken out to the curb, Pete wipes his hands on his jeans and grins. Someone is going to owe him big for this. Hopefully that person is Addison.

He reaches the front door as Mark plods down the stairs, hair wet, beard still way overgrown and not flattering but a fresh plain white shirt and dark jeans to match his bare feet securely fastened and straight. He thuds away slowly reaching the bottom and then bristles by Pete to the jarred door.

"Where are you going?" Pete asks.

"Addison." Mark mumbles and leaves it at that.

**_--_**

His fists bang on the side of her door and he doesn't think for two seconds to use the doorbell on the right. In theory, he could just fish his keys out of his pocket and walk in but he's sober enough to realize that that would be a mistake. He pounds a little harder and then stops letting his forehead come to a rest against the cool glass. He stumbles forward unintentionally when she pulls the contraption open a few seconds later.

"Mark."

"Hi." He whispers and darts around her to get in the dim light of her living room. He throws himself onto her couch and snuggles a little with the fabric as his bones revel in the squish of something other than their joints against the silly sleeping bag.

"Please, come in." She retorts sarcastically and slowly closes the door buying time. Hesitantly she follows him and tucks her legs under her taking a chair. A good twenty minutes pass with her eyes glued to the way his chest rises and falls raggedly, both daring the other to speak first and break the silent treatment. There was no intent behind what she did last night. It was simply that he was hurting and short of trying to lug him down the street herself there was nothing else that could be done. She slipped away this morning to shower and find some fresh clothes after a rough night on the cold floor of his dining room. As for being his person, the one who sweeps up all the pieces and painstakingly glues them back together to that the cracks only show when you look closely, well she doesn't even know where to begin or if her psyche is up to the challenge.

"Mark." She sighs looking at the clock in the kitchen. 12:03pm. Two hours of nothing. One hundred and twenty minutes of him fighting sleep and her struggling with frustrated boredom and not feeling welcome enough in her own home to speak up.

"Addison." His eyes stay glued to her popcorn textured ceiling.

She clears her throat and rises. At least she can do something if all he wants is to lie and melt into the softness surrounding him. "I'm going to go pack a few things. Let me know when you're ready." Ready for what she doesn't know, or have any clue as to when it will happen but the offer stands. Her fingertips barely grace the wood banister of the stairs before he calls her back. "What?"

"I'm sorry." He mutters, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Don't be sorry." She replies and spins around again.

"I just…I was confused and concerned and it didn't mean anything. You should know it didn't mean anything."

"I know." Addison nods. She came to terms with the whole situation weeks ago. She may be clearly in last place when it comes to the category of who knows who better but she does understand that Mark's coping skills are always down to what he can do to physically occupy himself and relieve stress. It's his thing. Picking Meredith hurt but she was probably just there and Addison can certainly relate to the need from both parties.

"I shouldn't have done it. You were…right. I should have just told you-"

"I wouldn't have let you have your way with me in an on call room that day anyway. You did what you had to. I get that." It's all she's done in the last few months. Whatever gets her through each black day. Regrettably, it has come at the expense of every other person in her life.

"I'm sorry." He mumbles again and can't understand why she is so shut down.

"I heard you." She heads toward the stairs again only to be brought back. She removes the rubber band from her wrist but not before snapping it a little against her own skin and then thoughtlessly pulls the wavy red strands back into something manageable. "Mark, I have things to do-"

"Why'd you come?"

"Naomi called me. Something about a police report involving my house."

"Oh." He pauses and then wiggles his shoulders obviously making space for her next to him. Instead she remains standing flat, waiting. "Thank you for coming."

She huffs and then tosses her head back in annoyance. "What are you doing Mark?"

"Talking to you." He replies earnestly not following.

"I mean what have you been doing? Naomi said you've been drunk for weeks on end."

"I'm not now." He groans. Definitely not drunk now.

"I see that."

His lips purse pensively and he can't decide whether or not to jump off the bridge. His impulse control shot by the raw nerves coursing through his body he goes for it. "You didn't want to drink yourself into oblivion when Reagan died?"

"I wanted to but I didn't. See the difference?" She shoots back hastily. If only she had a bottle and an empty womb, she'd be a completely different person right now. Maybe happy even. Completely diluted but happy just the same.

"Yeah." He agrees and slips expertly onto his side while reaching out for her hand. "Nap with me?"

"I need to pack and I have actually slept in the last three weeks unlike you." She argues her sleeping routine has always left something to be desired lately and though she does not want to even confess it to herself, last night was the first time she slept pleasantly since she forced Mark out of town. It was the first time she didn't awake in a frenzied panic, cold sweat and with a heart that is threatening to jump out of its cage.

"I have a proposition." He announces, still hanging onto her fingertips, trying to ignore the little sparks of excitement that he can feel for the first time since Derek has been gone. He doesn't want to feel them, he doesn't want Addison to make him so alive but apparently he has no say in the matter.

"What?"

"You nap with me then I'll take you to dinner." There's no trademark smirk, no air of confidence in the statement. Just an honest offer for her to take or leave. He knows she doesn't eat regularly and the fact that he hasn't had anything more than a bagel with his morning beer lately will probably be more upsetting that settling but he has to try because while he wasn't the one to completely break the woman in front of him he, without a doubt, played a major role in the way her frown is so proudly displayed these days. He's unsure if she'll let him back in and he isn't positive that he can give it his all but he has to give it something. She's Addison after all.

She gulps and shakes her head. She can feel the heat spreading through her hand, feel the somersaults of her stomach trying to tip her overboard and then she jumps back. "Oh! Oh."

"What? Did I hurt you; did I squeeze your hand too hard?" Mark jolts upright so quickly he can hear the pounding of his heartbeat clearly through his own ears.

"No." She relents and then nudges him back with her foot. Carefully she slides onto the couch and pulls a light blanket from the back of the cushions down over them. She keeps her feet and legs to herself and lets her right hand grace the small rise of her abdomen where the twins have finally started to flutter. She should have known it was coming but the moment still took her breath.

When he tries to loop his hand over hers she pushes it away. This moment should belong to her and Derek and if she can't have that then she doesn't want anyone touching her or them. "Are you going to answer me?"

"No." She cries out weakly, the fresh tears working fully down her flushed face. She liked it better when she couldn't feel anything, when they weren't trying to remind her of life's problems. She's irrevocably free to be with Mark and the only issue stopping them is that she's been released from her ex's hold. They're breaking her heart from day one.

"Ok." He whispers and rolls onto his back, almost pushing her onto the floor.

"They moved." She answers ten minutes later after she gets it under control for the most part. Her voice still cracks and her throat is just as tight but breathing is a little easier at least.

"Who- oh. Oh." He bites his lip and flips back over, "Can I-"

"No." She cuts him off.

"Ok." He nods. Derek's words flood his ears and drown his mind. "Promise me…that if anything happens to me that you will always take care of Addie and the kids. Promise me you won't pull some jackass move and walk away, just promise that you'll be there when I can't anymore." Well, he has positively screwed up that deal already. He lifts his hand anyway and places it against her stomach. She bats it away and he places it there again knowing he won't feel anything for awhile but that Derek would do exactly this in the moment. If Mark was coherent he would realize that he can't live a dead man's life but he isn't aware of that just yet.

"Please don't." She begs removing his hand for the third time.

He has to. It isn't even a choice anymore. They imperceptibly fight until she gives up and he lightly rubs his thumb over the blue cotton camisole while she feels like she is going out of her mind as the soft motion of his finger grinds the fabric into her stretching skin. "Stop! Stop." She jumps up from her spot. "I can't. I just can't Mark."

**_--_**

"You look like hell." Naomi comments taking a long look at her friend. Hair carelessly pulled back halfway, pale yellow sundress, straps all twisted in the back, badly in need of an iron (by Addison's standards) and signature heels traded in for white ballet flats add to the group's confusion as Dr. Montgomery traipses back into their lives.

Addison doesn't reply, just greets Dell and Cooper with waves and drifts into her own office to pack a few things up. As she drops the stupid framed degree into the pile of box number one she hears her door open and the light chatter of patients fills the room briefly and then promptly ceases. Her eyes drift up to Naomi but she keeps her mouth closed, lips straight, hands busy.

"I take it you're angry." Naomi begins and then takes a seat on the tan couch. "I guess I'd be angry at you if you did that to me too so for that I'm sorry." She pauses threading her own fingers together. She's a good friend, she's made a career out of being a good friend but she has never dealt well with people being mad at her whether it's warranted or not. "But…I'm not sorry you are here because of it. You belong here. Your home is here. Your family is here-"

"I don't have a family. I'm fresh out of family in case you've forgotten." Addison snaps angrily. And hers really is gone. Clear blood lines link her to nieces and that is it on this vast planet. Everyone has got someone, the black sheep, the crazy uncle, the drunken grandmother and Addison? She has herself and a pair of redheads that she couldn't take care of even if she wanted to.

"I'm your family." Naomi adds and looks up with expectant eyes. Rarely is she made out to be the amazing person she is and sometimes it would be nice if her hard work was acknowledged. Addison rolls her eyes and flings open a desk drawer searching for the important things to take away. "I'm sorry you're hurting. I wish it wasn't this way. I wish we could go back and make sure that these things didn't happen to us but we can't and there is nothing we can do to bring them back…and the sooner you recognize that…the better off you will be."

"I don't need lessons in life from someone who hardly does enough to be living one." Addison replies bitterly, shoving a pen into the box and accidentally stabbing the side of the cardboard.

"Touché." Naomi grins, "Nice to see your fire back."

"Screw you." Addison spits out clearly flustered.

"Mature. Very mature." Naomi stands, "I want you to stay. For what it's worth, I miss you. Even sulking, depressed, hates the world, self destructing you. You're my best friend and I need you more than you will ever admit to needing me." She excuses herself, eyes completely ready to cry in the comfort of her own space.

One and a half boxes later, Addison grabs her office plant Kip (who she named in a fit of boredom and self loathing months ago before the world came tumbling down) and heads toward the elevator. Something draws her to the office next to hers. She drops Kip on the ground and kicks the box of junk flush against the wall before entering the darkened room. "Nae?"

"Go away." She replies, wiping her eyes feebly.

"Naomi." Addison pouts and takes her friends hands pulling her up into the first hug she has given away in months. "I hate when you do this."

"What?" Naomi questions, not pulling back out of the embrace. It's been a long time coming, this hug, and she's going to savor it for all it's worth.

"You know what. I don't like when you cry."

"Well, neither do I." Naomi chuckles. "I'm sorry I called you selfish."

"It's okay…I kind of am." Addison responds, boundaries stretched and trying to pull back in vain.

"I miss Derek…which I didn't think was possible after what he did to you but…he's gone and nothing feels right-"

"I know me too." Addison nods and finally wiggles her way free. There was a part of her, if she was honest, that always thought that they would end up back together. She just never dreamed that she wouldn't want it when it presented itself. She spent years letting go of Derek and the man he was and could have been and his death is vastly different for her than Reagan's. Addison loved her sister with her whole heart, so deeply that when the person was removed she forgot who she was but with Derek, the fight had already ended and she was on the upswing of who she was solo. It's different but it still stings to think that he is permanently displaced.

Naomi decides to straighten out and stop the moping. "This is nice." Her fingers grace the small bump of Addison's stomach.

"All the cool kids have one." Addison giggles, feeling for a brief moment another break through. A fleeting second where she is who she was. It flashes by quickly.

"You've gained weight." Naomi nods in approval.

"I thought you wanted to stay my friend." Addison reminds her.

"You know what I meant, it looks good. You are finally starting to look healthy again…not that we don't all love the emaciated look you were rocking but…babies need food. Lots and lots of food you will soon find out."

Addison clears her throat. She's done with the kid talk. Honestly, she still not to terms with the whole idea and it's been nearly twenty weeks. She chalks it up to catastrophe and tilts her head toward the door. "My flight leaves in a few hours." More like ten. "I should get going."

"Addie-"

"Naomi. I'm going back. Nothing you say in this moment will change my mind."

"What about Mark?" Naomi urges following behind her and scooping up the box from the ground while Addison grabs at the green leaves of her office mate.

"What about him?" Naomi glares, "Nae, don't give me that look. Mark is Mark. He'll rebound. He's a strong guy. He'll be fine."

When they reach the elevator Naomi gives in. "Is that what you tell yourself to feel better Addie? That Mark is strong? That Mark can handle this when it's already been demonstrated that he is doing a pretty horrible job."

"Goodbye Naomi." Addison gives way in a warning tone that demands the subject not be discussed. She's also done with Mark talk and after spending the weekend darting from his hands and wasting speechless hours together she is confident that there isn't anything she can do.

"You better call me this time." Naomi calls as the door begin to close. Addison shrugs. "You are a horrible friend." She reminds her as Addison grins a little and adjusts the strap of her purse against her shoulder. "Get out of here. We don't need you."

Naomi watches until the doors close and then pivots on her short, chunky black heel to handle the rest of the day. It's a waiting game. It has to be.

**_--_**

The greens on her plate swish as she presses her fork around them like a broom. She pauses and sips at her water and then it's right back to the salad again. So far he counts three bites and can't remember if that's better, worse or par for the course on her nourishment choices. His fork seizes the day and heftily swirls pasta loaded with rich red sauce until it can hold no more and then he fills his mouth tasting of all the deliciousness he has been deprived of in the last few weeks. It's good to be eating and he doesn't understand her stance on the subject but he's tired of pushing her into things she is obviously uninterested in. He doesn't have the energy or drive to be her caretaker anymore no matter how much she needs it.

"I wish you wouldn't go." He swallows and dabs the still warm bread into leftover sauce.

"I have to." Addison replies and picks at her roll. She tears it into smaller pieces and then discards it completely on the side of her plate. Anything to keep her hands busy. Anything to keep her mind busy. She reaches for her phone to check her email while Mark leisurely enjoys his heavy meal.

"You don't." He argues weakly just for the sake of arguing.

"I'm not having this conversation with you." She nods to the waiter who refills her ice water and then scowls at Mark when he takes her hand over the top of the table and squeezes it gently. The minute the apron wearing server has disappeared she yanks it back out of his grasp. She's not playing the happy, in love couple for anyone anymore. She's had enough. She doesn't care who is or is not fooled.

He sighs, matches her glare and then continues on with the bread and sauce routine. His stomach is stretched and full by the time he finishes but he snatches the bill and escorts her outside for a stroll along the sidewalk in the setting sun so he can make sure nothing is coming back up in his car from either one of their stomachs. The engines of sports cars and exhausts of SUVs fill their ears while the watch people talk to their friends, walk their dogs, sight see and celebrity watch. The entire time they wish they were other people whose lives have never known the kind of horror they've dealt with lately. Surely every one of these individuals must be happier than they.

"You remember that one time when Derek wanted to get you a cat for Valentine's?" Mark asks, convinced she knew the entire time what her boyfriend was up to.

"Yes."

"Or when he wrecked his motorcycle and got the gash on his forehead that I got to close."

"Yes." Addison replies gingerly stepping over a pile of flyers. That was before Mark was the best and he left just a tiny scar on the top of Derek's forehead. Every time she saw her husband, she always had a reminder that there were three people in her relationship, not two.

"And remember how excited he was when he went out and caught that huge rainbow trout?"

"Please stop Mark." Addison lightly taps her toe into the ground and waits for affirmation that he is down walking down memory lane.

"Yeah, ok." He approves. It's nice to be around someone who was there for it all but she isn't ready. Mark just doesn't want to forget anything about his best friend and he figures talking will help keep his mind alive.

Their feet fall into sync and he wraps an arm around her waist to guide her by a group of tourists. He fucking hates Los Angeles. New York was different. You had to be pretty spectacular to stand out and catch someone's eye on a New York street. Here he can just tell. There's an understanding of exactly what everyone is doing and sometimes there is no way to blend in. He needs anonymity in the streets in the truest sense, "I want to go home." He says quietly to no one in particular. Inside thoughts have rapidly become outside statements as of late and he's relinquishing all control.

"Oh." Addison spins in his grasp so that his hand comes to a halt on her stomach. "The car is this way."

"That's not what I meant." But he turns anyway and they head back. Ten steps more in their own quiet. Ten steps that Mark thinks of the cools things he used to do with his best friend and being wonderfully intoxicated is sounding better and better as the images attack his mind. Ten steps that Addison uses to try and shut her mind down. "What happens now?"

She doesn't even try to guess what now is or what he means. "Nothing Mark, wait for it to pass."

"Wait for it to pass?"

"Yes."

"It passes?"

"Supposedly." She's not there yet. She's not sure she'll ever be there.

"How long's it been?"

"Four weeks and three days." She mutters and then silently to herself says sixteen weeks and five days.

Mark kicks at a fallen yellow leaf from the thin, man planted, tree above them and remarks, "I'm sorry I made you do things before."

"It's okay." Addison smiles lightly, "We should do things like get out of bed and shower because the world," she motions to the thin coat laden men and women around her, "doesn't stop and they don't expect us to either. No one cares."

"I care. I still care." He mutters and jams his hands into the clean pair of black slacks Addison pulled from her closet earlier. While everything is crystal clear he still feels like he is living in a pre-choreographed dance and someone brainwashed the steps into his head while he slept. Everything trick takes effort to perform but he does them flawlessly once he's going.

She stops her gait and tips her head to the side in thought before going up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "I know." She whispers pulling back.

He pauses in front of a store boutique window a few strides later and stares in at the discounted merchandise. "We missed Thanksgiving." He nods to the marked down junk next to them.

"So we did." Addison shrugs. Technically she knew it was Thanksgiving a week ago and she knows she has voicemail to return from Susan and Nancy and probably Kathleen but hiding in the emergency room tending to various odd injuries was significantly better than flying to a city that would only serve to break her heart for a holiday that would stomp her soul relentlessly. "Fortunately, we don't have anything to be thankful for." She remarks walking away.

"I'm thankful for you." He replies after she is out of ear shot. Sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes the end is simply the end and not some heavily shrouded beginning. Today he is letting her go. Today Addison F. Montgomery deserves a break and gets to go live her life as she pleases while they both catch their breath. He figures it is much needed. He can't focus on winning her back when he can hardly function in society for more than three hours at a time without desiring to be licking the bottom of a shot glass.

If he was smarter he would know Addison is already gone and has been for a very long time. Sixteen weeks and five days precisely.

**_--_**

"Mr. Shepherd-"

"Derek." Addison corrects and stares back at the thick stack of papers in front or her.

"Right. Derek and I spoke a few weeks ago Ms. Montgomery-"

"Addison." She nods.

"Ok Addison, Derek and I discussed at length the addition of his children to the will and against my advice he decided to keep you in as well."

She's sure it's not personal and the guy in the navy pinstripe suit is just doing his best to protect Derek's money as he has been for the last year but it feels personal and she's slightly offended that he has deemed her unworthy without speaking to her for more than two minutes. "What does that mean?"

"It means everything goes to you and there are trust funds already set up for his heirs."

Her eyebrows furrow in thought, "No one else."

"No." He states dryly reaching for a pen.

"His mother, his sisters-"

"Just you ma'am. So sign where I've highlighted and you will be the proud owner of one trailer and fifteen acres in Seattle among other things."

"Charity?" She questions. Derek always gave money away. He figured it was his good deed for the year even if he insisted on treating everyone else like shit around him; he still gave away a substantial chunk.

"No." He answers, clearly annoyed.

"It's all mine?" She gulps feeling guilty already for snatching his fifty percent plus.

"Yes."

"I don't understand."

"It's very simple really. He said…" The old looking lawyer reaches for his file, "…he said on October 26th at 5:37p.m. that everything should be switched into the name of one Dr. Addison F. Montgomery in the event of his death. That's you?"

"Yes." She straightens her skirt across her knees below the table and then knots her hands together and squeezes tight. She can't even believe she is in this room doing this. It's so surreal.

"Then everything is yours…except the trust funds…but since you are-"

"I got it. Thanks." She signs hastily without reading anything. "How much-"

"It's right there." He points to the middle of the stack like he has read it so many times that it is merely second nature.

"Have you…do I need to pay you?"

"It's been taken care of."

"Oh, ok. Right. Sorry. I just- I've never done this before." She explains, fingers twisting in and out of each other, hands beginning to sweat. Pierce, she is assuming, handled his wife's affairs.

"It's alright. I wouldn't really wish for you to have any knowledge of the proceedings."

"So what now?"

"I'll get this processed and filed and then everything switches into your name. I'll get you a copy so you know exactly what you are dealing with." She nods and he pulls back the signatures. "This isn't my place but…he seemed very excited about becoming a father."

Addison's eyes water involuntarily as she stares at the finely polished mahogany table. "I know." She stutters out and then stands offering the gray haired man a hand. "Thank you Mr. Whitman."

"I'll be in touch."

"Good day." Addison makes it out to the reception area before sinking into a plush leather chair and focusing her eyes on the carpet. Some days even the tiniest bits of activity leave her drained. Work she can handle. Work she can almost do on auto pilot and because of the fast paced nature she rarely has time to sit and contemplate why in the world she is feeling so morose but dealing with people who know and who look so sympathetic is about enough to make her want to crawl under the comforter at the hotel and drown in darkness. She takes a few deep breaths and pushes up and onto the elevator.

Seven hours at the hospital, Mrs. Jennings, Ms. Alvarez, Mrs. Anderson, Mrs. Kinot, Ms. Rivera…she can do this. C-section at noon, natural, natural, placenta accreta to monitor and a trying breach situation are going to fill her afternoon plus whatever is brought up to her. Then she needs to make sure to keep an eye on the Gershen's premature twin boys and baby girl Emerson who will need her duodenal atresia fixed as soon as she is born. They all need her. She doesn't have time for problems right now.

Two breaths. Derek's face. Seven breaths. Reagan's voice echoing. Twelve steps out the door. Mark's hands. Car door grasped loosely. Pierce on her doorstep. Ignition. Kennedy's screams. Gas pedal. Ellie's birthday party. Blinker. Two deep breaths. Signal light.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

**_--_**

"What is she doing here?" Cristina asks, toothbrush hanging from her mouth, hair literally standing on end and not because of one Addison Montgomery pulling a suitcase in through her front door looking extremely out of place in her high heels that cost more than Cristina's bed and her luggage that probably holds more money in couture clothing than she'll make all year round.

"She needs somewhere to stay." Callie shrugs and shows Addison the place with a quick wave of her hand.

"Roommate meeting." Cristina exclaims and grabs Callie's arm roughly and pulls her into the bedroom sliding the door closed with a rough thud. "What the fuck are you trying to pull?"

"She was living at a hotel and have you seen her lately? She's lonely." Cristina glares and Callie decides to pull out the big guns, "It's almost the holidays Cristina and I know you think that Christmas is only a holiday because you get idiots who swallow ornaments but for some people it's more than that. It's more than for that for her and she's all alone-"

"She chose to be alone. People need to own up to their choices." Cristina shakes her head annoyed, "This…you are out of your mind. I agreed to let you stay here. It's not some sorority house. We are not going to be brushing each other's hair and playing truth or dare or some shit, got it?"

"So she can stay?"

"You two better get me on some sweet surgeries and I'm not talking Bailey pulling intestines out. I want cardio, cardio, cardio. Got it?" Cristina slings her slobbery toothbrush wildly. She couldn't really care less. She's only here when she has to be and the fact that there are other people in the apartment keeps her mind off the fact that Burke used to live here. "Where is she going to sleep-?"

"Couch. I'll get some blow up mattress or something tomorrow for me."

"You know…you two have more money in your bank accounts than most people can dream up, why you want to play sleepover in a cramped apartment is completely beyond me." She pushes the door back open disgusted and Callie escapes.

"So?" Addison purses her lips.

"She wants cardio."

"I can do that." Addison states confidently and sinks into the well used couch up against a very bare wall. "So Preston Burke-"

"Oh. House rule number one, we don't ever mention that name." Callie plops down next to her and kicks off her shoes with her toes.

"There are house rules?"

"That's the only one." Callie mumbles, eyes drooping closed after a hard day's work and a hard day's lunch hour spent in the on call room with Alex Karev.

"So where's my room?" Addison questions looking around at all the closed doors expectantly.

"You're in it."

"I'm in it?"

"We live in here. Cristina gets the bedroom. The bathroom is off her bedroom and she'll come at you if you wake her up in the middle of the night because you have to pee."

"You do understand that I am pregnant and have to pee more frequently than normal people?"

"Hey, I wasn't the one living in a hotel room under a mountain of blankets and pillows and suffering silently. Now you can suffer with us." Callie shuffles to the floor and grabs a throw pillow on the way down. Technically it was Richard's idea but after some thought Callie easily agreed that it wouldn't be bad to get the redhead out into more social settings especially as December comes into full swing.

Addison looks from side to side, taking in her meager surroundings. This is it. She has no idea why she approved being forced from her room but she can work with this. She practically lived in a closet sized room in New York for a few months in between houses. She can do this. "Yeah." She mumbles and lies down, leaving her head flat against the soft fabric of the couch. "Hey Callie?"

"Humph?" Callie responds half-awake.

"Thank you."

"No problem."  
**_  
_**

**_--_**

Violet peers over the rim of her coffee cup as Mark retrieves his pen from the ground she _accidentally_ dropped. "Stop staring." Cooper whispers in her ear, jolting her out of her fantasy.

"I'm not staring."

"You're stuck with this." He flexes his left arm in front of her face, "So get used to the gun show." His lips land on her cheek and she brushes by him, leaving him to catch up as she heads toward the break room.

"Vi-"

"You think he's okay?" She questions. He appears to be fine. He comes to work dressed, impressing sober, contributes to the morning meetings with ingenious thoughts and well thought out plans to their many problem solving needs.

"Mark?"

"Yeah. You think he's over it already? Over Addison being in Seattle right now and Derek being gone…what a waste of gorgeous hair." She mumbles under her breath. "You think people can recover that quickly?" Her cup taps the counter lightly as she sets it down to our more caffeine in.

"I don't know."

"Oh come on. You guys all went and played poker last week. Tell me. I won't tell anyone else." Violet urges as she adds sugar to her messy concoction.

"You keep a secret? You can't even keep patient confidentiality."

"Cooper!"

"Fine." He grumbles and pulls a ripe banana from the fruit bowl in front of him. "I took him home that night after the game and…he's the most miserable person I've ever met. Myself included."

"Wow." Violet says softly, completely fascinated, her eyes lighting up.

"He's sleeping on a sleeping bag. I have no idea where his clothes are coming from because from what I can tell he doesn't have anything actually in his house."

"Maybe he's staying at Addison's again." Violet shrugs, taking a sip and burning the crap out of her mouth. She likes it hot.

"Nope."

"Maybe-"

"He's sleeping in a sleeping bag in an empty house Violet."

"Should we-"

"No. Let him deal with it." Cooper smashes the banana around his teeth, delighted with the mushy texture. Bananas are fun.

"Let who deal with what?" Mark asks drifting in.

"Oh…uh-" Violet stammers.

"Naomi is fighting with Sam again." Cooper quickly fills in.

"Again?" Mark shakes his head with a knowing smile, "Just like med school."

Cooper and Violet hold their breath, watching him negotiate the drawers to find a butter knife to complete the peanut butter and honey sandwich he has begun. His voice never catches, his breathing never alternates. He remains unaffected. Indifferent. "Yeah well you know those two." Violet's tone rises sharply and she dashes out.

"She's weird lately." Mark comments, spreading the goop over his wheat bread.

"It's Violet; if she were normal something would be wrong." Cooper seizes the opportunity to drop his peel in the trash and walks out remarkably calm.

"Right." Mark whispers and bites into his soft lunch. He doesn't even taste whatever it was he just put on there anymore.

**_--_**

"Damn it, damn it, damn it." Pierce curses, jamming his finger into Addison's doorbell relentlessly. "Ellie, entertain you sister." The redhead scrunches her nose peering at her screaming sister. "Damn it."

"Look Daddy!" Elianna tugs on the edge of his black suit.

"Not now Ellie…please…come on Addison." He knocks and stares at the door trying to force it to magically open.

"Daddy…"

"Elianna I swear to god." His voice rises sharply and she steps back rapidly, hiding behind the carrier her sister is resting in. "Sorry, just I really need your Aunt-"

"Daddy it's Mark." Ellie points to the beach where the man she speaks off is kicking up sand on his walk back toward his own home.

"Mark?"

"Mark! Mark!" Ellie shouts, jumping up and down, not realizing that with the crashing of the horrendous waves offshore he can hardly hear his own thoughts.

"Stay here." Pierce instructs and starts walking toward him.

"I wanna come!"

"Stay." He yells and she freezes. "Stay with your sister, I'll be right back."

He catches up in about three minutes, sand splashing into his shoes and trying to work its way into his dress socks. "Mark!" He turns confused and then keeps walking. "Mark wait!"

"Hey." Mark greets finally realizing it was the bastard who gave away his kids that was calling him.

"Hey, is Addison-"

"Addie is in Seattle." Mark finishes, cutting him off. He tries not to think about it. If he did, he'd go crazy so instead he focuses on work…and more work.

"Oh, right." Pierce tugs out his phone and checks the time. "I need a favor."

"What?" Mark growls, digging his bare toes even further to the ground and wiggling them around.

"Any plans for tonight?"

"No."

"Will you watch the girls?" He points to the small figure a ways back.

"I don't really think I'm qualified-"

"It's only for a few hours. I have a meeting that I couldn't reschedule because Mr. Barker doesn't really give a fuck if I have a family that needs dinner when he needs his brief finished. Just…I'll be back." He nods, urging.

"Isn't there another option?"

"The daycare place is closed and my mom is busy playing bridge so no. No other options, I was hoping Addison wouldn't mind. I've been trying to not impose on her…I know she did a lot for them-"

"Ok." Mark stops him from rambling. No more about how Addison read to kids and fixed them dinner, gave them their baths and changed diapers because it wasn't her. Most of the time it was him.

"Ok?" Mark nods confirming it and Pierce races off only to return a few moments later with both girls, Kennedy still screaming. Her face red and wet. Mark immediately looks down at her and Pierce shrugs, "She'll tire herself out eventually. I'll be back in a little while."

Mark takes the opportunity to comfort the baby before explaining, "I live down the road, we'll be there. Number 1278."

"Ok. Bye Pumpkin." He kisses the top of Ellie's head and then dashes away before she has a chance to respond.

"Hey kid." Mark greets, rubbing soft circles over the light infant.

"Hi Mark!"

"I have a project for us." He tells her as they begin to walk down the beach to his house. He figures she can help with what he had originally planned for the evening.

**_--_**

Addison slows her car and pulls into the heavily wooded driveway without a blinker. No one is around anyway except the rain that coats the trees until the leaves can stand no more and allow the overflow to fall freely. She grabs the keys out of her purse and stares at the trailer briefly. Taking a few more breaths she readies her mind and closes her heart. This will be a methodical packing of his things.

She hasn't brought herself to sell the property or the actual trailer and she's not sure she ever will but some headway should be made. Things can at least be cleaned and if she had to be honest, Callie and Cristina are hovering and annoyingly cheerful (yes, even Cristina on occasion) and it makes her feel like a ghost in the living room she calls her home. She sits as they watch crappy Sci-Fi shows and munch on popcorn while discussing obvious plotlines and ridiculous characters. The problem is that she can't kick them out and she can't really escape either. She merely sits with them, feeling very on the outside, and suffocates a little more with each click of channel changing and volume increasing.

Sometimes she opts for switching shifts just so she can drive her own car in to work. Then she starts the ignition, drives a few blocks and screams. The screaming usually leads to hysterics so she ends up on the side of the road frequently reapplying makeup and wiping at tears but it's all she can do for now. She waves to Richard, as he watches from his porch (he offered to box things up and she declined) and lets herself into the time capsule.

His fishing gear is still outside, his tackle box on one of the seats at the table, a used coffee cup on the counter. She feels her chest tighten and she swallows the emotion heading for the bedroom. Same sheets, same pillows. She nearly trips over his stupid boots before sinking onto the bed and pressing her face against the fabric seeing if just a hint of Derek still exists.

He's gone.

Some time later she feels Richard rubbing her back and turns around to weakly apologize but he silences her. "Let it out Addie." He soothes, taking a seat next to her as the sobs become more frantic and the tears more frequent. When she curls down again, messy comforter almost blocking her airways, he indulges in a few wet tears himself.

He understands that sometimes it's necessary to feel the bad before the good can ever come back but she doesn't know that and there's nothing he can say or do to make her feel any different.

**_--_**

Elianna digs into a cardboard box next to her on the sand and hands Mark an old baseball glove. "I don't like this game." She pouts, searching around again.

"Well we don't have to play it for very long." He explains sadly and then heaves the well worn leather into the angry ocean. He watches it splash and water swallows the memento without hesitance. He thinks about it sinking to the bottom, being swept away to live with whales and seaweed.

It wasn't a really well thought out plan. He simply can't keep looking at all of this crap when he comes home at night. Even if he was thinking about having an okay day, it's completely banished when he steps in the door. Logic says shove the box in a closet but no part of Mark has been logical in the last month and a half so littering and polluting it is. He swipes the tattered pictures from Ellie's hands as she exclaims about seeing Aunt Addie in them and asking who the dark haired guy is.

He carefully lays the photos at the water's edge and watches as foam laps over their happy smiling faces before the memory is violently tugged back and swept away for good. A few old pieces from a chess set, a copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ (that Derek told him he should read and he always claimed he wouldn't- he finished it last night) and every _Clash_ CD he owns leaves him with just the football, a few more pictures that he can't bear to part with and the now well used sleeping bag on his floor.

"Ok, that's it." He tells Ellie and then explains that he got sand in his eye when his tears become too much to bear. He hasn't really cried yet. It doesn't seem right to honor his friend with sadness. Derek would want Mark happy; he knows that much so now it's all a matter of getting there.

He plops down in the sand and pulls Kennedy onto his lap, testing her strength to stand by placing her (inappropriately bare) little feet on his jeans as Elianna creeps closer and closer to the waves. She squeals loudly when the cool water brushes her toes and comes running back to Mark. He chuckles and snuggles the infant closer, pulling her sage colored blanket from the carrier and protecting her from the rough wind.

He sits. He watches. He waits. At ten that night he peers down at Ellie, collapsed and snoozing with his leg as a pillow and the baby next to him also sleeping soundly. Just Mark and two redheads on the beach when he is positive it should be three. He lies back onto the granules, gazes into the dark night and brightly burning stars and finally lets the emotions run him over like a cement truck. He cries until he can hardly breath and then steadies his heart rate by forcing himself to spot the constellations in the sky.

He's never felt more alone in his life and the worst part is it's all his own doing.

**_--_**

She curls around the pillow she once called her own as Richard gently tugs the blankets around her tired form. It's pathetic that her boss is tucking her in like a child, she's fully aware of that fact, but she is literally too exhausted in all aspects to move or to drive home so she's stuck in the home of a dead man until she can pull it together. She feels him brush back some of her hair tenderly and she can't help but think of what a wonderful father he would have made if he would have given himself the chance. As he pulls back she murmurs, "Don't leave."

"Wasn't planning on it." He says softly and grabs a journal from the end table next to her. "I'll be right out here."

When she hears him shuffle away and open the sticky pages that she has without a doubt previously read the tears begin again. Sniffling she rolls on her back, wetness moving with her and soaking her neck, and stares out at the stars above her.

She's never felt more alone in her life and the worst part is it is all her own doing.

**_--_**

A/N: So I feel the need to explain myself which probably means I am doing a shitty job writing this but we should be clear that they do end up together. Not this instant because I refuse to Mer/Der them and I want them to be able to handle their issues when they come together (and believe me I have plenty in store). So they're in different states looking at the same thing and feeling the same way but they'll be in the same state and breathing space thinking about things other than death next chapter. Thank you all for your patience and understanding with my crazy little story. :)

* * *


	32. Together we will rise

A/N: Eh, I don't know what to say. It won't be easy I can assure you of that but I think most of you will enjoy this chapter. Thanks to **escapismrocks** for keeping on the straight and narrow. Have at it-

**_  
--_**  
**_You were blessed by a different kind of inner view: it's all magnified_**  
**_The highs would make you fly and the lows make you want to die_**  
**_And I was once there hanging from that very ledge where you are standing_**  
**_So I know, I know, I know_**  
**_It's easier to let go._**  
**_…_**  
**_But I will learn to breathe this ugliness you see_**  
**_So we can both be there and we can both share the dark_**  
**_And in our honesty together we will rise out of our nightminds_**  
**_And into the light at the end of the fight. _**  
_-Missy Higgins, "Nightminds"_  
**_--_**

"You wanna know the sex?" The older man squints down at Addison as she rips her eyes away from the chart on the wall she wasn't really reading. She chose him because he was on the other end of town. She chose him because in this trash hole of a clinic there is no way in hell he knows who she is or what she does for a living. The chairs are hard and plastic, the place reeks of antiseptic and she's pretty sure the roof is leaking out in the reception area but she doesn't care at all. There was a craving for pure anonymity. Regrettably, in that quest she completely forgot what was actually going on in regard to the check up that is just slightly over due…much like everything else in her life at present.

"Yeah. Sure." She clears her throat but still refuses to look over at the monitor as the twins tumble and flip around each other. It's a tricky situation. It's a dangerous combination and honestly, the doctor side of her brain, is in utter awe of this pregnancy that has been, to this point, complication less, that is if you don't count either hospitalization for dehydration. It's really nothing short of a miracle given her lackadaisical approach to eating, sleeping and vitamin taking.

Addison, the black hole of a person, doesn't see that. She doesn't see anything. She doesn't believe in miracles. She simply doesn't believe in anything. At all. Ever.

"They are definitely both girls. Congratulations." He swipes a small accumulated glob of now warm gel off her abdomen and bypasses the part of the exam where he would leave the room to give the happy in love couple a moment to appreciate the beauty of Mother Nature. This woman doesn't really seem to bat an eyelash one way or another so he continues measuring and comparing head sizes and then, "You want pictures to take with you?" He watches her quizzically bite down on her lip and for a split second he's convinced she cares, that is until she shakes her head no and looks out the window again.

He hurries through the rest as she appears to be more fascinated with the rain pouring down outside and he's got about thirty other mothers to get through today. "So…Candy will set you up with another appointment if you stop by the desk on the way out. Do you have any questions for me?"

"No."

"Ok. Well everything looks pretty good. So I will see you later-" He doesn't get a chance to finish before she's up off the table, buttoning her jeans and pushing down her violet silk blouse. Some women glow. This one glimmers in little shooting bursts of life. Her red hair shines brightly under the florescent light as she pulls a thick black coat over her shoulders. Her cheeks radiant a nice shade of pink but her attitude stinks and she's still far too small for her twenty one weeks. He's not too concerned yet. "You know it's ok to be confused and scared-"

"I am not scared." Addison corrects with a small grin.

"You seem-"

"Busy." She fills in before he has a chance to continue. "I'm busy and a little stressed. See you in a few weeks doctor."

She darts through the old, creaking wood door before he has a chance to tell her that what she seems is distant. Maybe next time he'll get it out. That is if she shows up ever again. He'd be willing to bet his meager income that she never again sets a clicking heel into his clinic.

**_--_**

"Mark? Mark!" Pierce calls out eagerly, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes as he enters the front door of a very empty beach house. He stumbles through the rooms until he sees Mark asleep on his stomach, Ellie situated next to him clinging to his arm, both atop a well used blue sleeping bag and his baby girl happily gurgling at the world outside of the many windows next to her carrier. He nudges Mark with his foot and waits the fifty seconds it takes everyone to wake up. "Hey."

"Pierce?" Mark gurgles, feeling Ellie shift next to him and unintentionally kick him in the thigh as she squirms. He should be used to her circus routine but it still aches a little and he rubs the burning spot without thought.

"Hey sorry man. I feel asleep at my desk after the meeting and I-" Mark raises his hand to signal the end of the conversation.

"Whatever." He groans dejectedly. He peers at the bright light and tells himself to remember to buy blinds already because he thinks the same thing every morning- Fuck the sun and the guy who put it there. He almost misses the perpetual rain of Seattle, nearly misses the grey clouds that cover the entire sky so that nothing is visible for miles. At least he slept better there.

"So they were good?"

"They are always good." Mark replies and finally makes it to his full height which vies for the tallest in the room as he looks Pierce up and down. "You changed."

"What?"

"That's not what you had on yesterday." Mark gestures to the khaki cargo shorts and red polo. He was unquestionably in a suit yesterday.

"I had clothes in my trunk-"

"It's Thursday. You don't work today?"

"I do." Pierce nods confused.

"I take it you won't be wearing that."

"Well, no. We have a dress code."

"Then why would you change into that only to come over here?"

"Am I being interrogated? Because I have to tell you there is no way you would win against me in any court. Now give me my girls." Pierce retorts angrily as the other man questions his whereabouts. It's none of his damn business. His kids were safe and that's all that counts.

"Where were you?"

"At work." He bends over and brushes a few red tangles out of Ellie's eyes before picking her up and laying her carefully over his shoulder. With his free hand he tediously bends over and grabs his other daughter and heads for the door.

"You weren't." Mark argues and he's not even sure why. Perhaps it's just for the human interaction. Whatever it is he should probably lay off before he gets laid out.

"What's it matter? I came back didn't I? I'm here now and you're off the hook. Thanks for watching them- I really appreciate it."

Mark follows him to the door, opens it for him and takes a deep breath trying to regain his composure. "If you need help-"

"I don't need help. What I need is my wife. I'm not cut out for this, plain and simple but that doesn't mean I don't love my kids. That doesn't mean you get to question every move I make when I don't even know your last name. Just mind your own business Mark."

"Right." He murmurs and watches the girls disappear down the driveway. As he shuts the front door his mind sets about a way to make sure they are okay. Children deserve someone that love them, someone who wants to be with them instead of with their jobs or their refreshing, inebriating drinks. Mark doesn't know a lot about parenting but he does know that…and he knows what it's like to be unwanted…on various levels. He wouldn't wish it on anyone.

**_--_**

Callie glances up at Addison who was safely tucked inside her faux sheepskin blanket and grimaces. This conversation, the one Miranda had been working her up to, was probably not going to go well but she had a back up plan for getting all up in her friend's business. The ice cream in the freezer had just been replenished and if all else failed she could just buy her a pair of shoes as an apology. God being socially awkward seriously sucked sometimes. "Addison?" Nothing. "Earth to Addison, you in there?"

Startled, Addison quickly throws her bookmark into Emma and looks down at Callie who is on her stomach flipping through some Hollywood tabloid. Having lived near the area, Addison can now sufficiently surmise that the only thing she found interesting was the shopping. "Yeah?"

Here goes nothing, "How are you?" Bad start Callie chides.

"Fine." Addison shakes her head baffled as to why the random question interrupted their collective reading time. She pushes her red glasses back up onto her nose and squishes her toes tightly slipping down a little more on the couch. "How are you?"

"Good…so you know I was talking to Miranda the other day and we were kind of thinking we would like to throw you a baby shower but neither one of us knows when you are due and it would be helpful if we knew the gender if you know…you know, so we could blow up the right color balloons and all that shit." Callie spews in one breath.

"Oh…I don't really need anything…so you guys don't need to do that." She pulls the glasses off and spins them around by the frame nervously.

"Ok…look, I'm supposed to get you to talk to me about this stuff because you aren't seeing anyone at the hospital that Bailey can threaten within an inch of their lives and I suck at it and that was a lousy attempt so if you could just tell me some random details that I can relay it back to Miranda so she'll stop harping me every ten minutes I would really appreciate it cause having her interrupt my surgeries stopped being fun three weeks ago." Callie sits up and crosses her legs Indian style watching Addison play with her glasses uncomfortably. Yeah, this is definitely not going well.

Addison shrugs, "What do you want to know?"

"Just whatever…you know. Due date I guess. There's kind of a betting pool that Yang is running and with a little insider information we could definitely win and split the earnings." Callie grins and then lets it disappear when her friend frowns.

Addison finds a hand drifting to the small bump that seems to have appeared overnight. Really, it was a long time coming but as it becomes progressively harder to hide (and really there's no kidding anyone anymore) it also becomes progressively harder to ignore and every time they kick now she wants to cry…which does not bode well for her cutting skills. "April 15th."

"Cool." Callie nods and turns back to her glossy magazine.

"Yeah."

"Hey Addie?"

"Hmm?"

"What's it like?" Callie sits up again and stares intently at her friend.

"What's what like?"

"Being pregnant. I mean I know what those crap books we had to study say but I want six…well I wanted a family and husband first but anyway…everyone always looks at me like I'm batshit crazy when I say that. It's not that bad is it?"

"I hardly know they are there." Addison replies softly and picks her book back up. It's a choice but it's really a matter of self preservation. Thinking about the little girls spinning around in her womb would only serve to harm them both. It's better to stay detached she's decided.

"Yeah…wait they?" Callie's voice cracks. "You're having…twins!" The last word flows out as Cristina slams the front door, completely ignoring the conversation around her.

"Fucking Hahn. Fucking hearts and fucking Hahn!" She nearly chokes herself undoing her black scarf and slops her rain soaked leather jacket on the floor, blatantly ignoring the coat hooks Callie hung up the week before. "It's not like I couldn't have done it but oh no! She has to ask four to scrub in like I am all busy. I'm assigned to her and she refuses to use me. She'd rather have my idiot interns who can't even sew a straight line of sutures." Cristina throws herself into the lone chair on the opposite side of the room.

"Hello! Important conversation!" Callie screeches up at her and looks back at Addison. "So?"

"So what?"

"What did I miss?" Cristina asks, plucking her shoes off and carelessly throwing them under the piece of furniture she is sitting on.

"Nothing." Addison claims and picks up the book from her lap.

"Ok. Dinner?" Cristina calls traipsing over Callie's bed and into the kitchen. She's hands off with Addison in order to save herself when Meredith pathetically asks how she is doing. Meredith, who they all know is doing awful, has for some reason found it in her new broken heart to care. Frankly, it frightens Cristina and she does not want to be involved when the tension filled situation explodes in everyone's faces.

"Fridge." Callie tells her and then joins Addison on the couch, nudging her feet up into to press against her chest. "So?"

"Callie…I don't want to talk about this in front of..." She tilts her head toward Cristina rummaging through the shelves of the fridge to find the Thai takeout they ordered earlier. So far, aside from having her own space and feeling like a complete outsider, living here is nice. At the very least she is surrounded with other humans who force her to have interaction much unlike her hotel TV and nightstand.

"It's not a big deal." Cristina announces dipping her chopstick into the white carton for another bunch of flavorless rice.

"You don't even know what we are talking about." Callie motions, her hands in the air.

"Whatever." She grabs the gallon of orange juice off the counter and throws herself back into the corner. It's sit here and make stupid small talk with Callie (who she surprisingly doesn't hate) and Dr. Montgomery (who she is a little sad for, not that she'll ever admit to it) or go sit in her room alone and try not to think about all the comparisons she can draw in between Burke the teacher and Attila the Hahn. It's the least of all evils really.

"It's not like the whole place doesn't already know…well they don't know what I think you are trying to say…Cristina doesn't care."

"Couldn't care less." Cristina adds in when the redhead looks over at her wearily.

"I just don't like to talk about it. Can we drop it please?" Addison pleads.

"Well just answer the question so I can tell Bailey and then I'll give this back." Callie snatches the book out of Addison's hand and holds it behind her knowing that there is no way her friend will come after her. Addison does not touch people anymore unless they are assigned to her with a last name and room number.

Defeated, Addison sighs before answering. "Yes. Twins. Give me my book." She avoids Cristina's gaze, "Please."

"How did I not know this?" Callie asks of no one in particular.

"Maybe it's not something she likes to run around blabbing about. I wouldn't." Cristina supplies and then shrugs.

"Does everyone else know?" Callie continues. Addison shakes her head no in response and snuggles back into the couch curling her knees up higher to her chest. Sometimes she wishes she had a room to escape into or that the cushions would just swallow her whole until she was enveloped in a warm hue of brown fabric. It would be nice to disappear sometimes is all and right now is one of those moments.

"Ok." Cristina says loudly pulling both women from their staring match, "Time to shut up. Eight o' clock. Remote." She demands of Callie and Addison breathes a sigh of relief when the same old Sci-Fi show comes on. She never thought she'd be so happy for aliens. She buries her head in the pages of Jane Austen hoping Callie will soon forget about the whole thing. The only matter she wants to talk about less than carrying a dead man's children is Mark.

**_--_**

"There has to be something we can do." Mark urges, looking around the conference table at his co-workers.

"He hasn't done anything wrong in the eyes of the state." Sam counters, flipping through his files for the day. If ever they could get out of the drama and into a normal work routine he would be thankful. He has his hands full as it is trying to keep Naomi calm.

"He doesn't even want them!" Mark explodes, slamming his cup down on the table. It's the first outburst they have seen from him since he's been back and the group looks around at each other shocked for a second before Naomi chooses to speak up.

"A lot of people in the world have kids who they don't want but Mark, that doesn't mean that they are bad parents." Sam shoots her a questioning look about their daughter and she rebuffs his ridiculous notion with a scowl.

"We have to do something."

"Well, I'll take a look at Kennedy's file again but we aren't going to find anything we didn't know about before and…Addison was the one in charge then…if anything does pop up it's going to be on her." Cooper explains lifting a pen from Violet as she tries to combat his hand.

"What?" The psychiatrist exclaims when they all stare her down.

"Did Ellie ever say anything to you about her father?" Naomi asks seriously.

"Even if she did you know I can't tell you."

"You're keeping the confidence of a five year old Violet…and we share files all the time…we share patients." Pete reminds her sipping his coffee. He's all for helping save Addison's nieces. It would be a nice Christmas present to send them up there with bows in their hair.

"I'll look again." Violet surrenders, "But she…I don't remember anything about Pierce honestly."

"Ok, meeting over people. Get to your patients." Sam adjourns and watches Cooper, Violet and Pete scamper from the room. He tenderly clicks the door closed after they leave. "Listen man, I know you want to help those little girls but you need to be prepared for the inevitability that there is nothing you can do."

Naomi lightly pats him on the back. "Mark, even if we do find something…I'm not sure Addison should be in charge of them right now and there's no way you would win a petition to take custody. Maybe we should leave them alone. They've been through enough. They need stability...and Addie can't…you can't give them that."

"I watched them the entire time." Mark replies slowly, "I watched them…Addison…she couldn't or wouldn't. She tried but I was with them. They shouldn't be near him." He drops his head and stares at the carpet, "They shouldn't be with Pierce. He doesn't…never mind. I'll do this on my own." He starts toward the door.

"Mark! No. Just let us help. We'll sort this out, okay? Don't do anything. Right Sam?" Naomi nudges her on again boyfriend/husband in the ribs.

"Yeah. Let us see what we can do first." He agrees and watches Mark reach for the handle, "So what are you doing for Christmas?"

Mark turns around surprised. He hadn't really gotten that far. He tends to take it one day at a time. Sometimes he ends up curling up with the sleeping bag right after work because it hurts too much to breathe let alone do anything else and sometimes he makes it out for poker night. It all depends. Things change in an instant these days. "I don't know. Nothing I guess." Same thing he did last year while Addison celebrated with Derek in the trailer. He hid in his apartment all day with some random girl named Cindy. It worked. He's not going that route again this year but that worked for him then.

"You should join us." Naomi smiles as Sam wraps an arm around her waist.

"No…that's okay." Mark declines. He was never part of their family. Occasionally when he tagged along with Derek and Addison but he was never really close with them, not like they were.

"Yeah you should. We're inviting Cooper over too. Apparently he doesn't have anyone which means that Violet will probably show up so you know the whole damn group will be there eventually." Sam explains, trying not to grit his teeth about a once happy small Christmas being overblown into a large work party complete with drinking. "Plus if you need something to do later this week Naomi and I need help putting up the Christmas tree from hell."

Mark rubs his frazzled facial hair and declines again. He's not about to become someone's pity party. Instead he switches subjects, "Have you heard from Addison?"

Sam looks at Naomi who responds with a nod, "Yeah, she called when she got into town last week and I tried to talk to her yesterday but she was paged."

"Oh…ok."

"Mark, you should call her. I bet she'd like to hear from you."

"No." She made it very clear before she went back to Seattle that he shouldn't bother attempting to come with her. They need distance in the form of a whole state separating them to get through this according to her. All he needs is her nuzzled up against his chest, not that that matters now. Obviously, he's screwed up every chance he's had and he's starting to think she's better off this way (not that there wasn't a part of him who didn't think she was better off that one year ago). Mark is most certainly not better off but he would willingly sacrifice his happiness so that she could go live her life. He's tried twice and faltered but the third time has to be a charm. "I have a patient. I'll be back this afternoon."

"Ok." Sam bids him goodbye as Naomi turns into his side and buries her head.

"I wish they weren't so stubborn." She admits, sounds completely muffled by his white shirt.

"Me too but they need to go at their own pace." Sam lightly strokes her hair until she takes a few deep breaths and comes out from her hiding spot.

"I don't like not having her here. I can't make sure she's okay in Seattle…she just lies to me and tells me she has a patient or a surgery or a 911 page."

"I know." He pauses briefly as she looks up at him with watery eyes, "They'll be fine Naomi. They always are."

**_--_**

"Dr. Grey. May I have a word with you?" Addison asks politely steering Meredith by the arm into a vacant on call room.

"Sure." Meredith squeaks out too late when the door closes her in. She's vaguely aware that if this was a year later the people outside the room would consider it a cage match and send someone in to referee but now they are just Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Grey. An attending and a resident, perhaps conversing about a patient. Without Derek they are nothing to each other and yet it is everything to Meredith. Addison knows him the way she wanted to. Addison had the life she wanted with Derek but she's not bitter or resentful. She doesn't have the energy for it. "Can I…do you have a patient?"

"Der-ek." She chokes as Meredith's eyes water involuntarily. It's a knee jerk reaction these days. She clears her throat and starts over. "Derek left me…everything…but I think maybe some of the stuff in the trailer was yours because it's not mine and as far as I am aware he wasn't seeing anyone else. I have the items in my office if you wanted to swing by and pick them up later I would appreciate it."

Meredith wobbly wipes her face, admiring the older woman's stature, her ability to remain impartial to the situation. "Ok." She watches Addison spin around on her heels and head for the door without so much as a second glance. "I don't remember his voice." Meredith mentions softly and slumps onto the bottom bunk bed in the corner. "I don't remember his face before the accident. I don't remember the way he smells. I don't remember anything…I want my memories back."

Addison bites the inside of her cheek until she draws blood and then decided to let Grey continue. She leans against the closed door willing the younger girl to speak subconsciously.

"I just miss him and I told him that he deserved you and that he was an ass but I would take it back…I don't remember his voice." Meredith gives up on keeping her face dry and instead tilts forward so the warm splashes land on the tile instead of her scrub pants. "It sucks."

"Yeah."

"I shouldn't…you don't care about me but I feel like-"

"I don't know you very well Meredith but that doesn't mean I don't care. You are a talented, excellent doctor and from what I hear a pretty great person…even though you did steal my husband," she can't resist the jab, "I don't hate you."

"I've never…things don't…affect me like this." She sobs and then catches her breath openly. "My mom died- I was fine…Susan…I don't…I can't breathe."

Addison watches as the young doctor begins to grapple with hyperventilating. She finally decides to take action and drops her purse on the floor before kneeling down in front of Meredith. "Hey look at me. Meredith, look at me." She lightly rubs the small girl's back feeling her tense at the touch. "Breathe…breathe…good…you're doing good. Eyes on me." She watches intently as the exhilarating fear dissipates from Meredith's face. "Ok then. There we go."

"S-sorry." Meredith stutters her throat still constricted before comfort.

Addison purses her lips and then stands again. She can't accurately describe what she's feeling. Part of her resonates, understands the excruciating pain the young resident in front of her is suffering. Part of her is solely functioning as a doctor, making sure the patient really is fine and part of her is completely clueless. She doesn't know what Derek and Meredith shared, all she knows is that it was good enough for him to give up on their relationship and shack up with a bunch of interns. "It's ok."

Meredith looks around nervously, waiting for the redhead to disappear so the incident can just be forgotten. She's had a few breaks, here and there, not that anyone is paying attention to her. For someone of her caliber, someone of her experience she's doing well. Some people lay on bathroom floors, some hastily get married. Meredith works. She works it out in the O.R. "I-…"

"I don't know how to say this so I'm just going to say it and then you can respond, ok?" She doesn't wait for a nod that isn't coming, just presses on. "Derek left me everything…and I…I don't know what your relationship was like with him but I know, I just know that he would have stayed with you. I know that you made him happy Meredith. I have…if you need anything…if you want some of his estate…" Addison gestures wildly, letting the leather strap of her purse ride up her arm. "If you want some of it or all of it…I don't need it…and he probably would have, if he was thinking clearly, wanted you to get something. I don't know what you want. I don't know what you need." She finishes ungracefully and begins to fiddle with the vast array of things inside said purse.

"His fishing pole."

"Pardon?"

Meredith bites down on her lip and shares, "He always said we could go fishing together and we never got to…I really wanted to go." Her admission hangs in the air for a minute before Addison's laughter fills the void.

She clears her throat and tries to stop the inappropriate response. "You want his fishing pole. No money? No pictures…not a shirt…just his fishing pole?"

"Yes." Meredith nods. She doesn't understand why it's so funny.

Maybe this is why they worked Addison thinks to herself before affirming, "Ok. It's all yours. You know what? You can take all of the fishing stuff if you want it because I certainly have no use for it and it's taking up space in my storage unit." She watches Meredith's eyes light up, "Are you on call tonight?"

"No."

"Meet me at seven in the lobby and we'll go get your fishing pole."

"Ok." She waits until her supervisor is halfway out of the door before thanking her. Addison waves it off and disappears with perfect posture and decorum as if them being locked in an on call room was simply part of a normal routine.

**_--_**

"You hung out with Grey?" Callie questions the next day over lunch at the same deli Mark had convinced them would not give them food poisoning months ago. It's quick, quiet and more importantly not filled with nurse's hungry eyes and ears.

"I wouldn't go that far." Addison corrects taking a long drink of water from her plastic bottle.

"Well what exactly would you call it because it is all the nurses are talking about this morning- how Montgomery and Grey left last night together. Spill woman." Callie steals a chip off of Addison's tray and she doesn't seem to notice any movement behind her own hand that is slowly peeling the paper label from the bottle.

"I took her…She wanted. Let's not talk about it. It was nothing. We aren't best friends and we not going to be heading out to get drinks together any day soon."

"Ok." Callie nods watching her friend grow frustrated.

"It was growth. I am growing." Addison pauses.

"No kidding." Callie smirks.

"Not funny." Addison pouts, "You know what I meant Cal."

"Yeah, well I'm proud of you for being the bigger person. Get it-"

"Yes, I got it. Thank you."

"You're no fun anymore. You're all cranky or quiet." Callie laughs but then catches her friend's glassy eyes. "Addison, I didn't mean anything by it. I was…I mean I know you're quiet…it's just weird. I never thought living with you would be like this."

"Yeah well Yang doesn't exactly bring out my fun side."

"She's not that bad-"

"For a cardio obsessed slob." Addison finishes and pushes her tray forward still half full.

"You should eat." Callie points to the picked over salad and plain, salty chips.

"Spare me the lecture doctor." Addison snaps and then apologizes immediately trying to explain that she is a little sensitive in that particular area. Callie announces that a subject change is in order and soon they are moved onto Christmas with Addison pretending that the season doesn't remind her of two men that are no longer around. They infrequently speak of plans, Addison never committing to any one thing except for working that morning after begging Richard to let her be on the board and Callie trying to coerce her into coming out to meet her family in Florida.

**_--_**

As the days creep by and the tingling colorful strands of Christmas lights begin to pop up all over town and the weather begins to drown the city in sheets of thick, icy rain Addison finds herself becoming more and more displaced. She wanders through stores for hours after work never finding anything to send anyone. It all seems wrong. She leafs through catalogs with the acute awareness that if she doesn't literally place an order within the next three days it will be arriving late. There is brief and fleeting happiness though. It remains only in the fact that she is not in New York being hammered with the snow flake memories and cold morning nostalgia of her, Derek and Mark opening presents on Christmas morning in the brownstone.

She watches people pull heavy evergreens out of parking lots and onto their SUVs and in the back of truck beds; sees as children bounce around the street fresh from winter vacation and more energetic then she can ever imagine being again. She goes to work, makes small talk, grins at her patients, does the best damn job she can, searches for gifts without anyone in mind and then drags herself onto Yang's couch for another night of ignoring the fact that she should very well have a family to celebrate with instead of the tiny fake tree on the coffee table and the Menorah in the windowsill that keeps her awake at night when the gold reflects off of the streetlamp outside. Instead of moving it or asking politely for it to go somewhere else she simply tugs a blanket over her eyes and wills the sleep that never comes to give her a damn break already.

She needs a break. She needs a plan.

**_--_**

As the days slowly meander Mark finds himself more grouchy than normal. It takes every part of his restraint not to snap at old women who want to give their husbands the gift of breast enhancement or a more perfectly shaped nose for the holidays. He tries to remain patient and calm when he goes out to retrieve his dinner at night and sees all of the advertisements for toys and ads for jewelry. He does his darnedest to forget that there are a few people that he still wants to buy gifts for even though almost everything reminds him of Derek or Addison.

Sometimes he talks to himself in a low and quiet voice when he gets home. Tells himself to relax and to just breathe because within a matter of days all the fucking crazy Christmas people will disappear and life will be able to go back to its normal routine of punishment without the added jab of pain induced by the fact that he is all alone for the holidays. It's not really a new thing, this aloneness but it is something that he has been blessed enough to avoid since knowing Derek and then later on Addison. They always made sure he had plans even without having a family and Susan always made sure he got a few presents when he was younger before the entire Shepherd clan latched onto the idea of having a new pseudo brother. It was nice what they did for him and he realizes now that he took it for granted; he took them all for granted and only showed some of his worst qualities just in case they decided they didn't want him anymore. Because he wasn't really their family, he was saving himself the heartache of ever having to really find out that they could live without him around.

Now, he's got one day to shop and there is nothing on his list to pick up and nothing in the mail being sent to anyone. All he's done is walk circles and curse the world for this month long procession of agony and torture. He tried to throw himself into finding dirt on Pierce, at one point almost hiring a private investigator but Sam talked him off the ledge and now he's stuck here, in this beach house- next to the empty beach house he loves - hanging up stupid tinsel on overpriced, half dead branches.

"It's more silver than it is green now Daddy, can we stop yet?" Maya whines somewhere behind Mark. He doesn't really mind the kid. She's a teenager but he's always been able to side with women.

"Yes, please stop already." Naomi affirms coming back into the room with a tray full of steaming hot cocoa mugs.

"Alright." Sam agrees and grins swiping a cup from her. Mark waits until everyone has chosen and then takes the last snowman adorned mug. He sips quietly feeling insanely out of place and dying to get back to his blue sleeping bag and anti-Christmas house.

"Is Aunt Addison coming back?" Maya asks as Sam begins to hang the blue and green glass ornaments.

"No, she said she had to work but I did get your present from her in the mail this morning at the office."

"Can I open it now?" Maya grins, batting her eyelashes, a move Mark has seen Naomi pull countless times with Sam. It never fails. He waits and watches with the anticipation of a four year old to see an object that the redhead has touched recently. Sure, it's pathetic but he's acclimated. That's just kind of how his life is now anyway.

"Mark…" Naomi clears her throat and waits for his attention to snap back. "This is for you. Addison said she didn't know your address but you can open it now."

"Nah. I'll wait." Mark replies, taking the thick gift wrapped envelope from her hands. It's the only present he has to open on Christmas morning and his inner child is contemplating a pity party at this very moment.

"No, she was explicit. She said to open it tonight." Naomi grins, looks at her watch subtly and is content in her ability to follow through with crazy plans. She talked to Addison for the first time in a week and for the first time having a conversation longer than four minutes when they spoke yesterday. She tried to talk her into coming home, tried to lay into her about taking better care of herself but it was all shot down in favor of talking about Mark…for three hours.

It was exhausting but a good so now all she can do is watch with watery eyes as Mark carefully begins to un-tape the corners of his gift. She always had him pegged for the kid that plunged into things like Maya is doing next to him but he expertly uses his talented fingers to slip off the white ribbon and bow before tediously undoing the snowman laden paper. Sam glances up when Mark pauses and pulls the plain manila envelope open and a pound of tree shaped glitter and confetti falls onto his floor.

"So what'd you get Uncle Mark?" Maya asks holding up her new iPod. Naomi had begged Addison not to get her the latest version convinced her daughter did not need more than one but it was really the only thing she on the top of her mind- that or a weekend of shopping like they used to do but she wasn't in town so that plan kind of went out the window into the rain.

"I…" He looks up at Naomi who simply laughs and nods. "A plane ticket." He checks his watch, "Oh shit. I need to leave."

"I started your car while I was getting the gifts out of the garage. You're ready to roll." Naomi tells him.

"Are you sure-"

"I didn't buy you the ticket, she did. You'll have to ask her what she was thinking when you get there. Oh and she said she'd have someone pick you up at the airport and to not take a cab because she isn't at the hotel anymore."

"Where is she?"

"No idea. Give her my love though and Mark!" Naomi calls when he reaches the door.

"Hmm?"

"Don't screw this up."

"I won't." He grins and slips out with only the ticket and the clothes on his back. Maybe it won't be such a bad Christmas after all.  
**_  
_**

**_--_**

"Yang?!" Mark hollers rounding the hall to head down to baggage claim before realizing that he brought zero luggage in which to pick up.

"Great. Let's go."

"What are you doing here? Are you picking me up?"

"No I'm selling my body to traveling business men." She watches him raise a brow and rolls her eyes, "Ugh…You never change."

"Nice to see you too."

After climbing into the of what he is presuming is either Yang's new car or something she stole he finally breaks down and asks where they are headed. She tells him it is none of his business yet and presses the gas down until the city lights are just a huge blur of bright white and soft pink outside of his window. The rain splatters hard against the windshield, the wipers squealing as they try to be helpful but all Mark hears is the far off sound of relief. He snaps to when the car abruptly skids into a parking spot. "Been driving long?"

"Dr. Montgomery let me drive her car so I had to test it out a little. I'm more of a motorcycle enthusiast myself." She points to her "baby" two spaces down and presses a tiny piece of paper into his hand from her brown leather jacket. She ties up her hair and leaves him confused but headed for the right floor of her apartment building. Having no Burke and no family she wants to actually see, Cristina volunteered to work alongside Meredith. Maybe it's avoidance but tonight it feels like their saving grace.

Mark knocks twice before actually seeing the doorbell. He jams it in with his pointer finger and prays like the dickens that there isn't some hired hitman waiting to kill him behind these walls. Slowly the wood creeps back and he sees her. Hair loosely curled and half back in a clip she definitely used for work, time appropriate green blouse snug against the growing twins, and black skirt complimented with bare feet she smiles. "Hi." She greets a little squeakily, heart racing ninety hundred miles an hour.

Two days ago this was the most brilliant thing in the world and yet for the last three hours she has been off all she has done is pace Yang's floor with her red toenails and hope that he shows up. Rejection would have been the most aptly fitting Christmas present but she didn't want it. Still doesn't if she was being honest.

"Hey." Mark smiles and watches her shift her weight onto on foot and carelessly massage her calf with the other. "Can I come in?"

"Oh…yeah…sorry." She steps back and allows him into the organized, just cleaned living space. She offered to pay Cristina to let her use it for the day but it was unnecessary as soon as she saw the board.

"Is this yours?" He gapes looking around at the less than homely interior, something he would not attribute to Addison at all.

"No. I…long story made very short…I live with Cristina and Callie."

"Here?"

"Yes." She nods and sweeps by him to grab a wine glass of the counter. She pops the cork off the bottle and slowly pours one glass handing it to him and then springs the refrigerator open and selects her juice. Two glasses raised, one small toast and the obligatory clink and clatter lands them right back in the uncomfortable territory that started the second he stepped foot into the room.

"How are you?" He attempts setting his empty glass down and shaking his head when she tries to refill it for him.

"I'm good. Really good, just working and you know all that-st-stuff."

"Good, yeah, well me too. Keeping up on facelifts and augmentations. The usual."

"Good. Anything new happening down there that I should know about. Sam ask Naomi to marry him again?" Addison shrugs.

"No, no. Well, not that I know of. I'm not really involved in the office gossip. I steer clear."

"Yeah me too." She nods feeling as though they've been separated for years rather than a few weeks. She scolds herself for thinking that they could fool anyone and takes a step forward burying her head in his neck. He steps back cautiously and then relaxes pulling her into him once again and stroking her hair.

They stand, shifting weight, breathing deeply for five full minutes before Addison steps away with a sobered look, "I hate Christmas."

"Me too." He exhales, feeling the mood lighten about twenty degrees.

"And I've been doing really bad. I mean not as bad as I was…I just…feel lost and it's stupid and I know it's the holidays and that automatically makes life ten times harder but I missed you which is stupid because I completely blew you off last time I saw you and I haven't called but I didn't know what to say to you because you look so sad all the time and I'm sad and I don't know how to fix me, let alone you so I just thought it would be better…if I kept quiet and worked on me…except I don't know how to work on me without you and I know, I know that I'm ridiculous and I treated you horribly and I took you for granted and yelled and cried too much and never listened and never gave you the opportunity to say the things that you needed to say but I want to do that now. So this is my Christmas present to you. I want to listen. I'm listening."

"Wow." Mark exclaims trying to process.

"What?" Addison nearly shrieks, feeling a flip out looming on the horizon. She hasn't laid herself, her whole self, her entire heart on the line in years and it is nothing short of frightening.

"Nothing." He traces a smooth line across her cheek and down her jaw before lightly kissing her lips, just to touch them, just to see if they are the same and as soon as he is able to confirm that the little fireworks still ignite in his stomach when their mouths meet he pulls back.

"What was that?" She watches him head toward the door prepared to go into panic mode, "Are you leaving? I didn't mean to- I take it back."

"I'm taking off my shoes Addie, relax." He slips out of the black loafers and plods along to the couch, grabbing her hand on the way and feeling a little spark when their skin collides. It's never been like this before for Mark, never has a woman had an affect on his heart instead of his manwhoring abilities and it scares him a little to understand that he stands so much more to lose if he goes through with this. He tugs the blanket from his end of the couch and covers them both as she rests against his chest. "So where do we start?"

"We…c-could start…now? If you want, m-maybe we could just try all over again." She stammers slowly trying to gauge his reaction without being able to see his eyes. This leap she's taking could pay off…or it could be the final blow.

"You want to try all over again with me?" He questions shifting around so he can actually see her face. He's been waiting months, no years for this exact moment; the moment where Addison finally realizes that what she's been searching for is right in front of her and he isn't going to miss it for the world.

She takes a deep breath trying to vocalize her thoughts without her voice cracking. Four seconds she can't get a harness on anything, except the hem of her skirt that she keeps rolling between his sweating fingers, and ends up blurting out, "I think I'm in love with you…that I've been in love with you…that I love you." She watches with trepidation and then throws in a, "I love you Mark." for good measure just in case he couldn't understand her stuttering.

He savors the moment, sweet in his heart, light in his mind before reciprocating with a cheeky grin, teeth proudly on display. "I love you too."

"Ok." Is all she manages to get out before his lips are on hers again, warm and moist daring her to open her mouth just a little so the real fun can begin but she pulls back, falling up against the arm rest of the couch. "We should talk about…everything…I don't want to-"

"Right." He agrees, trying to sit up responsibly and take some accountability. "Except maybe…just for tonight since it's Christmas Eve and all we could simply not talk-"

"I'm not taking my clothes off yet." She warns him still feeling flushed and glowing from the last few minutes.

"Ok. We don't have to do that. We don't have to do anything. Let's…" He trails off looking down at his watch that reads a little after midnight, "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas Mark."

"How about we go to bed? I'm tired; you need your beauty sleep." He springs up energetically from the very cushions Addison wanted to smother herself with last week feeling more alive then he has in months. It's not going to last, this high he has and he knows that and they know that. These things, the good minutes, they come and go in little waves. One minute you are soaring the next you are crashing. It is best to take advantage of what you have while you have it though; he's figured out that much. It helps take the bitter edge off of the black hours.

"This is where I sleep." She points to the couch.

"You've been sleeping on a couch?" He wrinkles his nose distastefully.

"You sleep in a sleeping bag." She counters and watches him frown. She'll never know the origins of the sleeping bag. That's his secret and his alone.

"True. Maybe there's a room at the Archfield we can get."

"Or…" She lifts up the blanket and stand up, "We could just stay here." She lifts her voice hopefully and he finally catches on slithering back to the couch and pressing himself against the back waiting for her to slide in next to him. When she finally manages to stop wriggling around and get comfortable, legs tangled together, he wraps a hand around her waist and rests it across her expanding stomach.

"I can't." She sighs and l pushes his hand down until it comes to a halt on her hip.

He kisses her temple and adds it to the list of things to discuss. This thing that they've just started is not going to be easy but he sees now as well as she does that it is all they've got and after going the road alone for a small amount of time they now understand it's not something they want to do anymore. He relishes in the warmth of her back pressed into his, even though they are fully clothed, this is the most at ease he has been in weeks. "Night Addie, I love you."

"Night, love you too." She whispers knowing that sleep won't come for hours but content enough to simply be held for the first time since September. It's a step, a small one, but it's there and she's finally ready to take more.

**_--_**


	33. Is this what Christmas is all about

A/N: Hello! It's been like what, a month or so? Yeah, I suck. It's been proven time and time again...but to make up for that this is unreasonably long (like grab a snack and a drink long) and I've already sat down and started pounding out the future chapters so we can all move the hell on already. So to recap, in case you don't remember (because I almost didn't), we left off in Seattle with Mark and Addison admitting they care and whatever that all means. Here we have a light brushing over of the issues and I expect that there will be some seriously heavy talking happening next chapter when Mark gets fed up with life. My usual thanks to Hannah! Um...enjoy-

**_  
--_**  
_I hope it snows this week,_  
_A snow flake on your cheek_  
_Would make this Christmas so beautiful_  
_But that would just bring the pain_  
_Cause things can't stay the same_  
_These holidays won't be wonderful_  
_..._  
_I look under the tree_  
_But there's nothing to see_  
_Cause it's a broken heart that you're giving me_  
_I can't figure you out_  
_Is this what Christmas is all about_  
_Cause it's a broken heart that you're giving me_  
_..._  
_I don't wanna talk_  
_I'm sick of all this talking_  
_A broken heart wrapped up in a box_  
_This tear drops in my stocking_  
_-Relient K, "I Hate Christmas Parties"_  
**_--_**

Mark's eyes dance open to the tune of a slamming door. As soon as they contact with the harsh light filtering in through the dusty white vinyl blinds on his right he presses them shut tight again and prays that Addison slept through the entire disturbance because with the way she has been squirming for the last however many hours he seriously doubts that either of them has gotten any sleep. When he hears the door rattling again he opens his eyes and searches for a clock in the unfamiliar territory. 6:37 in the morning. "Ugh..." He peels his tongue off the roof of his mouth and swallows hard. Old, dirty wine is never a fun taste in the morning.

"What time is it?" The head beneath his chin mumbles.

"Six-thirty." No sooner does he finish than is she sitting up and trying to straighten her clothes out from their wrinkled state. "What are you doing?"

"Work." She spits distastefully, seriously beginning to regret demanding to be in the hospital, but she'll be damned if the situation gets the better of her so she stands and rifles through the black suitcase on the floor looking for something that won't need to be ironed or dried.

"You work?" Mark slowly sits up, still slouching heavily against the uncomfortable couch. His back screams in wild protest and he sinks back down nearly choked for air because of the sudden pain.

Deeming it an acceptable occasion to look sub-standard Addison pulls out a pair of gray slacks with subtle pinstripes that have managed to stand up against her packing abilities and a cream colored sweater that will hopefully still fit. Good enough. "Yeah. Only for a few hours. Go back to sleep."

"But you never work on Christmas."

"I do this year."

"You're not just saying that are you? You won't use work as an excuse not to see me and discuss things?" He stares at the popcorn textured ceiling and listens to her sigh.

"When have I ever- never mind. No." She grumbles and grabs her toothbrush out of its container before heading to the kitchen sink to brush her teeth. It's a less than ideal arrangement but it works.

"And you won't-"

"Mark. I'm not a morning person. That hasn't changed so...shut up." She spreads the mint flavored blue goo on her brush and then tacks on a nicely toned, "Please."

"Ok." Mark agrees and drifts back to sleep only to awaken to the sound of keys being dropped on the hardwood flooring. He has no idea how Addison has been staying here and not going insane. It's Addison for crying out loud- living on a couch in some resident's living room. No part of the makes sense. He hears a whispered apology from the redhead and then the door knob beginning to twist. "Hey Addie?"

"Hmm?" She asks, hands full of keys and purses and makeshift briefcases.

"When are you off?" He keeps his eyes closed and his voice scratchy. It's easier to fall asleep again if he doesn't make the effort to move.

"Noon."

"Ok." He pauses, brain slow from exhaustion, "Hey Addison?"

"Yes?" She calls halfway out the door this time.

"I could meet you at the hospital and then we could go get lunch."

"Yeah. Ok." She nods. "That sounds good."

"Hey Add?" He asks again as she begins to pull the door closed.

"Hey Mark I'm trying to leave here."

"Yeah I know." He slurs.

"Ok, what is it?" She juggles her purse onto the opposite shoulder and almost topples over in a heap from the complexity of the maneuver.

"I just wanted to tell you Merry Christmas again."

"Oh, Merry Christmas Mark. See you in a few hours." She shuts the door quickly trying to beat any more lingering questions he may have about her whereabouts or their probable daily activities. Mark may be having a Merry freakin' Christmas but Addison hasn't adjusted to the idea of a Derek-less holiday or a non-NY day. Tradition runs deep. She seldom had any growing up in the chaos of a working father and a less than interested step-mother and when she was finally married she demanded that there by ice skating and live tree searching and decorating with popcorn strings and sentimental ornaments. Mark became wound up in the plans and she's thankful that at least he's here but nothing is the same and it's a hard pill to swallow when she sees how empty the streets are on this cold foggy morning.

The snow free sidewalks quake under her heels and the wind bites into her skin unforgivingly the minute she steps foot out of the apartment lobby and searches for the lone spot where her car is sitting. It appears that most of the other inhabitants of this building are spending the morning in with their loved ones.

She wishes she felt like it.

* * *

"Dr. Montgomery, I have Mrs. Henderson's labs here." Alex jams the file under her nose adorned with red reading glasses. "It's not good."

"I see that." She replies flipping through the pages. She feels a warmth spread through her lower back and her heart instantly jumps into her throat. When she senses lips pressed on her neck, just above the collar of her white lab coat she spins around fully prepared to slap the hell out of someone. "Mark."

"You're late." He taps his watch and glares at Dr. Karev. Never has he despised anyone else on the face of the earth as much as this stupid, arrogant resident. He broke Addison, at least in a simple frame of mind, and Mark would like to break his neck in return.

"Busy day." She says softly and looks at her own watch. Indeed. Twenty-four minutes tardy and counting. "Dr. Karev I want you to monitor Mrs. Henderson closely. If anything changes page me, got it?"

"You're not on call." Mark argues instinctively, childishly. He wants her to himself, it's a basic need. No one likes being alone on holidays. They're marketed and geared to make you feel like shit if you are. "There are other people working Addie, let them handle it."

Addison ignores the remark and keeps her eyes on Alex. "Ok?"

"Yeah. I got it."

"Good." Her pager buzzes away loudly on her hip and she hastily excuses herself from both men to find out what is so urgent in the pit.

"Dude, you should just leave her alone. Let her work if she wants to work." Alex carefully follows Addison's pen marks over the chart and refreshes himself on the case. Triplets, premature labor, it's all the same these days. One big blur of pink and squishy.

"I didn't ask for your input."

"I'm just sayin'." Alex sighs. He knows what Mark doesn't know. What he is willing to bet Mark would like to know- what Addison has been up to these last few weeks, at least in the work sense he knows. And what he knows better than that is throwing yourself into work and pretending the world doesn't suck.

Mark leans against the counter about a foot from the other doctor and rolls his eyes, "Well do us all a favor and stop running your mouth why don't you?"

"Fine." Alex snaps.

"And save the attitude. I don't need it today." Mark stares down the hallway at the room his best friend used to be in and tries to remain calm. He's relatively sure he can do this and he needs to be sure and strong because he has a feeling that for all the bullshit Addison is putting forth she isn't going to be able to pull her own weight and he's not going to blame her this time, he's just going to work with it. Whatever she can give, five percent, fifty, doesn't matter. He'll take it. He has ground to make up for here.

He made a promise.

"You know you don't work here anymore."

"Which only means that when I lay you out that I won't have a contract in jeopardy. Don't tempt me Karev."

"You don't know what it's been like for her. You haven't been here." Alex states after a few minutes. He hates the holidays and the general rule of thumb is that when Alex is hurting he purposefully hurts others, they need to feel pain too.

"Don't start with me."

"It's true." Alex clicks his pen and begins to fill out the next set of papers in his set. He can multi-task while Sloan stares off into the distance.

"And you would know how?" Mark waits for an answer. "Exactly what I thought."

"She-"

"Just stop. You don't know her. She gave you a chance and you ran away like a little bitch. Be a man about it. Grow up and own it because there is no way I'm ever going to let a piece of shit like you hurt her again."

"Possessive. Always a nice thing to look forward to in a relationship." Alex quips without missing a beat.

"You don't know her."

"I beg to differ but seeing as I actually have a job I should probably get back to it." Alex snaps his chart shut and prepares to disembark when Mark challenges him.

"What's her favorite season?"

"What?" Alex looks back quizzically.

"Winter. She likes winter the best because she loves snow and she likes ice skating but Derek would never take her cause he sucked at it so I always got roped into going because I used to play hockey. She hates cream in her coffee, cognac makes her ill, she's allergic to kiwi and we used to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas every year because she gets sick of the classics by December 7th. She detests Sci-Fi, unless it's Star Wars related, but will still sit through whatever someone else wants to watch because she's considerate. She reads more in a week than you have even thought about in the last year and almost went into cardio before she decided that her talent would be better suited somewhere else. She fought tooth and nail in our class of interns as the only woman and then she kicked our asses and took Chief Resident. She loves crappy Chinese food and the stupid little viewfinders that you find up at the top of ridiculously tall buildings. You can put her in a fancy restaurant or hand her a brown paper bag with a turkey on wheat in it and either way she'll be happy as long as someone gives her the time of day during the meal."

"Dude, whatever." Alex mutters watching Mark work himself up and begin to toe toward the deep end of the proverbial pool.

"You don't know her." Mark finishes angrily, stopping himself from listing family trees and favorite colors and birthdays. He knows Addison better than he knows himself at times.

"And yet for some reason you feel the need to be defensive." Alex swaggers away knowing he won the battle and leaves Mark to figure out which direction Addison ran off to while he was busy not paying attention. Alex may not know his boss's, from what he can gather to be complex, past but at least he isn't relying on simple black and white facts to build his argument.

Houses made of twigs tumble in storms.

* * *

"Addie please." Mark begs, flipping through a chart she just thrust at his chest and pretending to be interested. "This is non-emergent."

"She's my patient. She's been my patient since day one- or day twenty-one."

He trails behind the click of her heels and tries to think of a better way around this, "You promised-"

"I did not promise anything." She clarifies, "I said lunch would be nice but you should understand better than anyone else how it gets around here. Now," she gestures for the chart back, "I'm busy. So...occupy yourself."

"How long?" Mark nearly whines as they round the corner and run into Miranda Bailey and Richard Webber.

"I don't know." Addison sighs, "Leave me alone Mark."

"Is he bothering you?" Miranda glares.

"No, he was just leaving." Addison smiles.

"As are you." Richard jumps in, giving way to Mark's overly pompous smirk.

"I have patients."

"Not anymore you don't." Richard snags the pink plastic from Addison's hands and passes it back to the nurse behind them. "Page Dr. Pollock." The nurse nods shyly and scurries away to complete the task before anyone can say another word. "You are taking the rest of the day off."

"See?" Mark grins.

"You shut up." Miranda asserts, folding her arms across her chest and setting her feet in place.

"Thank you." Addison replies and takes off down the hallway.

As Mark begins to follow once again he feels a rough hand on his shoulder. "What?"

"If you hurt her, I swear on my own hospital that I will kill you." Richard warns sternly.

Mark nods and wiggles out of the older man's death clasp, "I know that."

"Good."

Mark stares at Miranda until she dematerializes. Once quasi alone in the bustling hallways Mark asks the question he wanted to ask Alex before he turned into a know-it-all punk. "Is she...has she been-"

"She's fine Mark."

"Ok."

Richard smiles warmly, "You know Addie. Always a fighter."

"Right." Unfortunately, that's not the Addison Mark knows at all anymore. She's lost her fight and it only comes out in lightning quick sparks now, like a firework that slowly fizzles she loses her resolve and melts into the ground beneath her. They broke her, they all played a part but he's willing to stick around and make sure that she's able to build herself back up and if she'll let him, he'd like to help.

"I suppose I will be seeing you around here now?" Richard asks with a sparkle in his eye. Any opportunity to get part of his dream team back would definitely be considered a Christmas present in itself.

"I don't know." Mark answers as honestly as possible. He has a home in another state, as does she. He has a job in another state, as does she. And he has a project within the borders of California that she is beyond invested in and not by choice. Certainly he can't be positive that those girls are being treated well from a good thousand miles away.

"I thought you were here for Addison."

"I am."

"She resigned her contract, I was hoping you'd do the same if you are going to be around a while."

"You know Richard I will think on that and get back to you after the new year, ok?"

"I look forward to hearing from you Dr. Sloan." Richard extends his hand which Mark shakes quickly and then takes off again, this time in the direction of her office two floors up because he has a feeling that it's all going to hit the fan today, especially minus the distraction of the hospital to use as a shield.

Mark's clenched fist pauses outside of the still wood for a second before diving in and lightly rapping. He hears a few shuffles inside before the door slowly swings back revealing Addison, shoeless, legs crossed and hands secured on the arm rests of her office chair. "Hey."

"Hi." She swallows. There's no hiding the damp trails on her cheeks or the red nose that she's sporting. All she can do is wait for the inevitable question that makes her want to scream at the top of her lungs until her voice gives out.

"You okay?"

There it is. These days answering it is met with the use of breathing techniques so that she doesn't lose her cool and in turn her temper. It really is the most ridiculous question ever invented. "Fine." And it's always paired with the most ridiculous answer ever.

Unsure of what to do or how to approach the situation Mark merely jams his hands into his jeans so that he doesn't do something that will upset her. Touching, while evidently fine last night, may not be all right in this setting and he doesn't need to be lashed out at today. What he needs is a rule book. "Yeah, me too."

They wait silently, Mark dragging the point of his shoe on a small rug by the front of her wood desk, Addison swaying back and forth by using the end of her big toe to move the chair. "Do you want to do lunch?"

"No." She replies without hesitance. Even lunch in a bar, a place that isn't going to consist of happy families celebrating, it doesn't sound like fun.

"We could pick something up on the way back to Yang's." He offers.

"No." Addison shakes her head and then drops it.

"You don't want me to cook, do you?" Mark jokes, chuckling a little to break up the odd tension in the room.

"No." She replies softly, losing ground.

"What?"

Addison chides herself for being a five year old and then stands and tries to take a step. Sometimes it's okay to need people and there is no one else she would rather be needing than Mark. That lesson was learned the hard way. "Can I- Will you...I need-" She stammers unable to break ways with her stubborn pride.

"You need new shoes?" Mark questions looking at her bare feet and the discarded leather pumps on the floor.

"No." She whimpers pathetically.

"All right you're just gonna have to say it then because I am not good at this game anymore." Once, in their college days when hanging out with Derek then meant hanging out with Addison too he used to just be able to know. Then again, before the affair but now they haven't spent time together in weeks and all he knows is she's growing gradually distressed for no apparent reason. He watches the little face contortions as she shifts her weight, watches her pull the cream colored shirt down when a little patch of skin by her hip becomes exposed and then he feels her. Pressed against his chest, head tucked neatly into his shoulder where it just seems to belong and he realizes that what she wanted was a hug. He wraps his arms around her loosely so she doesn't feel caged in and grins before kissing the side of her head. "Oh."

Instead of reverting and disappearing back into herself like the previous months, she openly sought comfort and more importantly sought comfort from him without pushing away first and dissolving into a puddle of tears. When he feels her tug on his right arm and wiggle he hugs her tighter. This may be better than the plane ticket because while it's not much to anyone looking from the outside in, it is the world to Mark.  
**_  
_**

* * *

He's not exactly sure how to broach the topic but she's been pleasant, quiet but pleasant, ever since the small office breakdown. They went to lunch anyway, Mark pushing his red plastic basket around the table trying to look interested and Addison poking at hers with a fork. It doesn't feel like Christmas. Outside the lights are there, even adorning the top of the Space Needle so it looks like it is wearing a white colored tree and the traditional last minute shopping is taking place and families can be seen huddled together taking pictures inside their home but it doesn't feel right. There's just something wrong. "Addie?"

She looks up behind the red curtain of hair that is framing her face long enough to see his eyes and realizes that in an instant that he wants something so her retort comes out snapping, "What?"

"I was-I want to go see Derek but I don't know where he is or how to get there. Can you show me?"

Addison clears her throat, mind instantly flashing through a wave of events like a bad slideshow taking place in someone's dusty basement, "Yeah."

The ride to the cemetery is silent, both encased in their respective worlds and memories. When they finally get there, collectively morose and exhausted from the day's draining adventures Addison hesitates. It was never supposed to be like this. Derek in the ground and Mark proclaiming his love. It's all wrong and backwards and she feels guilty sometimes for loving him back. The lingering pain that she senses can't even be differentiated or appropriated. It's just there. All the time, disrupting her world. A constant reminder that the world is not once the place she thought it to be and it will never be, no matter how much she wishes they would both come back, again. She hears him offer to let her sit in the car, even offers to leave her the keys so she doesn't get cold waiting but she'd rather be upset and together in the wet headstone ridden hills than alone with herself. "I'm ready."

"Ok." Mark nods. They crash through the well manicured trail, eyes looking over the sea of dead souls set on feeling nothing but numb. Mark reaches for her hand about halfway through and is surprised to find that she doesn't pull back. Instead she clings wordlessly as they twist and climb, the wind softly howling behind them. In Addison's free hand is clutching a bundle of red flowers that, to Mark, look like everything else that's been scattered over the remnants of the other loved one's lost lives but he supposes that this is what happens. You go. You take something. You stare. You feel worse. And you leave when you can no longer stand it.

He looks over at her after she arranges the flowers with excruciating precision, pushing the older ragged bunches to the side to make way for new life. Even in death Derek is well looked after and remembered and Mark only hopes to one day be the same. To be the guy, sadly and selfishly, whose marker is overflowing with love in the form of materialistic things. In the end, he still wants to be everything Derek was and will never be again. He watches Addison whisper something, hardly audible over the brewing storm above them and then slowly turn back around and begin to wander off giving him the time he needs with his best friend. It should be easier to talk to him now and yet all Mark can do is choke on his constricted throat and nearly gag as the pressure sets in on his chest. This is why he didn't come to the funeral.

Slowly but surely the abundance of tears he's been holding in for the better portion of three weeks begin to build and then overflow just in time to catch the rain that falls. Like a sign, like a mask he is able to cry because the world is already damp. "I don't know what to say here man." Mark finally manages through a locked jaw and a strained voice, "I'm sorry that I wasn't there," he lies, "and I'm sorry that things went down like that." He shifts his feet back and forth over the soggy green grass, "I'm trying with her. I am trying. I'm going to take care of them." He repeats over and over, nodding his head, knowing that out there is someone who hears him, someone who understands, even though he's never been one for religion or faith.

"I'll come back." Mark whispers before he turns around and searches for Addison among the gray. He's not even entirely convinced that it's true. "Merry Christmas Derek."

* * *

Two hours after the words are hushed by nature and light traffic Mark finds himself settled under a blanket on Yang's couch while Addison, who is molded perfectly into his chest, reclines lazily as they watch horrible early evening television. How Shark Week fits the theme of Christmas he will never know. Mark scoots around, stretching his legs and looks down, "Addie, you awake?"

"Unfortunately." She replies with a small smile.

"I have something for you."

He watches her lean forward and remove her weight so he can get up. "Really?"

Her eyes light up and Mark immediately kicks himself for not finding a cooler present at the airport but really, he was at an airport, there wasn't a whole lot to work with on his limited time schedule. "It's nothing to write home about." He answers and then stupidly shakes his head. Foot in mouth. Home is never a good subject but she ignores it and crosses her legs, setting her hands on her knees that are covered in loose black lounge pants. Staying dressed up seemed silly besides Mark's downgraded to just and undershirt and his jeans so she doesn't feel completely out of place. He's good at bringing things down a level when she needs it. He's a calming force now instead of the whirlwind of activity he used to be.

Trying not to get her hopes up about the only Christmas present she's received is useless. Her mind races with all the things that could be in this white plastic bag. He places it in her lap with another disclaimer about how it's really not that great but that he plans on getting her something as soon as the stores are open. Like Mark, Addison was the kid who carefully folded back tape and made sure not to rip into paper, often upsetting her sister and the children at parties her stepmother made her host. Though partly through her own nature, most of it was instilled her mind at an early age and now it's just a habit that drives Mark nuts for some hypocritical reason. He keeps his excited hands to himself though as she pulls out the two little pairs of socks. He wasn't kidding, it's not much.

"Oh."

"You don't like it."

"They're nice." She examines them closely, looking at the little stitching and patterns of palm trees and tropical fish. This present has officially become the only thing she has ready for her kids and they won't be usable for months because despite Mark's attempts they're still way too large for newborns. "I like them."

"I didn't know- I don't know if you know the genders, I just thought they were...cute and I don't know, it's stupid. They reminded me of you and I can get you something else-" He's cut off by her sweet, warm lips on his. She thanks him nonverbally by sliding her tongue into his mouth and moving into a different phase. Sex she can do but he pushes her back with the reminder that they are doing this right and it doesn't include jumping each other in the living room of a place they don't own no matter how much he would like to.

She looks toward the floor, embarrassed and turned down, just in time to feel him pressing a hand against her stomach. When she finally finds the strength to glance up he has the tiny socks spread out over her small bump. "What are you-"

"I want to see if they like them," he grins and strokes a thumb over her (his) old t-shirt.

"Well isn't this disgustingly cute." Cristina announces and sloshes her jacket onto the floor followed by her keys and the slam of her bedroom door.

"Sorry, bad day." Meredith apologizes and trails behind her friend when Addison waves her off.

"They move a lot." Mark remarks, completely enthralled and fascinated. Sure things may be pink and squishy but this is different. It's always different with her. The most ordinary things like watching reruns of Law & Order can result in the best day ever as long as she's there.

Addison hasn't paid attention. She knows they kick, she can feel it, she hates the reminder but her mind is actively engaged in not noticing. Aside from the effect on her bladder she doesn't think about them. It's just safer. If they don't make it; if something happens she won't be able to handle it. So she stays back. She stays detached because she honestly believes that it is the best thing to do even if everyone else thinks it's odd and recommends that she engage in therapy. This is the only issue she is sure of in her life, well that and cutting people open. "Girls." She answers to the question that wasn't really asked five minutes ago.

Mark smiles, the real smile, full on teeth and decides to take it further since she is sharing, "Names?"

"No." Addison answers. She's not dedicating a name to anything until it is safely at home in a crib...and even then it will be hard.

"Oh, well we'll figure something out." Mark replies nonchalantly.

"You don't have to do this." Addison stands instantly, socks falling carelessly to the ground as Mark's hands slide off of her.

"I want to do this." He senses the fury building, the tension mounting and simply bounces up, takes her hands so she can't gesture wildly or run away and explains what he's been trying to understand for weeks, "I know they aren't mine, I do know that and I won't lie to you and say that I like it better this way because...I don't but I still want to do this." He sighs, "I want you for good and I want them. I don't want them only because I have to take them if I want you so don't even start to think that. I'm ready. I wasn't before and I lost it a little and slept with Grey but maybe that's what had to happen for me to get it. I get it now. I promise. I'll show you Addie."

"Almost. I thought you said you almost slept with Grey." Addison's voice raises, daring to call Meredith back out into the room like she can't hear everything through the ridiculously thin walls.

"It was almost. I'm happy I didn't but I would have and I'll apologize every day for the rest of our lives if I have to for it, ok?"

"Ok."

"So let me buy socks and diapers and sort through names with you while you eat pints of mint chip ice cream, ok? I'm stepping up and I know my track record sucks but I want to be a dad-"

"Mark-"

"No," He raises their hands, still tangled together, "You have to let me finish sometimes. We're gonna fight, I know that much already, but we're gonna be alright Addie. I know I'm not their real father but...I knew him and that should count. I can tell them everything about him, stuff you don't even know, we'll be a good team."

"You hate kids." Addison adds in when he pauses for breath.

"And I'll probably hate these ones too when they scream and keep me up all night and throw up in my hair but that doesn't mean I won't love them too. I'm not perfect and I'm a mess and I don't know what I'm doing but I'll learn. I want to learn. I'm not losing you again, ok?"

Addison smiles with the knowledge that there is no way to sufficiently voice her concerns, her many, many concerns. She likes his enthusiasm, the way he's stepping up even if it is going to slap her in the face in two months, even if he does end up walking away so she can't deny him. The main problem is that what Mark wants is to be Derek. Whether or not he realizes it is an entirely different subject and definitely not something they are going to discuss today. "Ok."

* * *

"Elianna! Pick up your feet." Pierce demands as he hears the light scuffles of her sandals on the pavement. He tightens his grip on the carrier that holds his screaming three month old daughter and stomps ahead.

"Come on. Open up, open up." Pierce slams his fist into door of Mark's empty house over and over waiting for magic to happen.

"Daddy I'm tired!" Ellie announces, finally caught up, and scrubbing the sleep from her bleary eyes. Her nap in the car was too short.

"Maybe if you picked up your feet like I asked then you wouldn't be so tired." He jams his finger into the doorbell twenty times before even entertaining the idea that Mark may not be home on Christmas. He bends over and picks up Kennedy again and heads out to try Addison's house just in case.

When he arrives the windows are dark, the doors locked and the blinds drawn. He knocks and rings anyway in the vague hope that someone will be able to take these annoying children off his hands for just a few hours so he can finish the briefs that he was supposed to have done three days ago. Ever since he took over his kids' lives his work has began to take a backslide and it's not unnoticed by the partners in his firm. They don't take kindly to a measly forty hours a week of work. Forty hours is barely billable. He runs a few fingers through his hair and then gives up and takes a seat on the front step calmly rubbing his hand over Kennedy's stomach so she'll shut up already.

He doesn't get this kid. She's dry, warm and full and yet she's still not happy and all Elianna ever does is whine and putter around aimlessly when he is home. Elizabeth, his mother and the sole support he has in babysitting, says that she's an angel when she is over there. Always quiet and compliant and a little fidgety but that's not the kid he gets. He gets inconsolable, exhausting, demanding Ellie and it makes him want to leave her in Mark's house and walk away for good sometimes because neither version are the child he has grown to love in the last five years. That is not his baby. His child is vibrant and bright, energetic and helpful.

"Pierce?" The voice startles him into jumping up and then brushing off the navy blue jacket of his suit.

"Hi." He tries to remember her name. Some friend of Addison. Some woman who used to see Reagan when she was pregnant. He's got nothing.

"Naomi."

Pierce nods, "Right."

"What are you doing?" Naomi bends over on auto pilot and plucks Kennedy from her carrier, carefully placing her against her shoulder and begins to bounce.

"I was trying to find Mark." He swallows as Ellie comes around the side of the house and tackles Naomi's knees. He didn't even know she was gone.

"He's out of town...visiting Addison. Did you need something specific? Can I help?" Naomi switches from bouncing to swaying and then combines the two when neither seem to work.

"No, it's all right," Pierce huffs, "I just need to go to work and I can't find anyone to watch them. My parents are visiting my sister in Vermont and I have-"

"It's Christmas." Naomi clarifies.

"I know."

"And you have to work?"

"I need to get some stuff done and I know the office will be quiet today so I wanted to go in for a while."

"But you don't need to be there. You aren't scheduled."

"I don't understand." Pierce shakes his head, "We aren't- scheduled. I'm a lawyer."

"I know." Naomi cradles Kennedy in the crook of her neck and reaches down to brush a few of Ellie's tangled curls off her forehead. They aren't dirty but they aren't clean. They don't smell but they look like they could use a bath and some hair brushing. They don't look starved or beaten. It's going to be tough. Just because people don't want their children it doesn't give anyone the right to take them away. It's not the way it works. Naomi just wishes Mark would realize that. "It's just, you're volunteering to go in on a holiday."

"I'm behind. Ridiculously behind because that one screams all night and Ellie has school and violin lessons and ballet classes and I can't keep up. All I do is drive around." Pierce throws his hands into the air in frustration.

"I'll watch them." Naomi offers and watches his eyes light up.

"Yeah!" Ellie cheers, "Daddy please?"

"Sure. Thank you." He stands.

"Pierce did you- has..." Naomi shuffles forward and drops her voice, "Did you buy them anything for Christmas...I mean have you opened presents yet or-"

"I forgot. But I'll pick some stuff up on the way home. Just tell Ellie to wait." He didn't really forget, just the idea of lugging down the fake Christmas tree from the attic and all the boxes of decorations literally made him sick to his stomach. He was hoping to fool his oldest child and ignore the fact that the holiday was even happening.

"Ok."

Pierce squats down and gets to eye level with his oldest child, "Elianna I want you on your best behavior, do you understand me?" He watches her nod in disbelief, "I mean it. If Naomi says you were bad then you won't get your Christmas presents ok?"

"I promise." Ellie grins.

"Ok. I'll be back pumpkin." He lightly kisses the top of her head before waving them all a goodbye.

"Well let's go get you girls inside, ok?" Naomi looks down and grabs the carrier realizing that Pierce also managed to forget even the simplest of things like a few spare diapers. After they stumble back toward Sam's house, and she manages to explain everything, she happily lets Ellie go play with Maya and hands over Kennedy to see if Sam still has the magic baby touch that always used to soothe their daughter.

Naomi digs her cell phone out from her purse and paces to the sand in need of solace already. Her finger holds down the three button and she prays that Addison doesn't ignore her call and immediately send her to voicemail like she has been for the last month. On the forth ring she gets a disgruntled male, "Mark?"

"Hey Naomi." He smiles and then surrenders the phone without another word.

"Hello? Nae?" Addison toes out into the hallway, seeking privacy from Cristina and Meredith who are still closed off in the bedroom doing god knows what. If she didn't know better she'd say taking drugs and playing truth or dare but they all work tomorrow.

"Hey, I need to break into your place, where's your spare key?" Naomi squishes the small granules between her toes and wait for the unavoidable question.

"What? Why?"

"I just forgot a few things in there last time you were here and I wanted to get them back, that's all. Trying to organize, you know how I get on my days off."

"Nae I can't really hear you over the ocean." Addison leans against the wall next to the new door that she sees everyday and waits for her friend to get closer to Sam's house. "Now what did you want the key for?"

"All right promise not to flip out?" Naomi shakes her head. Old Addison would flip out, be angry and call up her brother in-law right away but new Addison probably isn't going to do anything so when she hears her best friend agree she gives in, "I have Ellie and Kennedy because Pierce had to work on Christmas of all days and he forgot the diaper bag and I'm just guessing that we will need a few things so I was going to go into your house and grab-"

"They won't fit."

"They might. She's not that much bigger but don't worry her lungs are still ear piercingly strong. I sent Ellie to go play with Maya's new high tech toys so they should be occupied for awhile."

"I'm sorry." Addison says softly. She got them all wrapped up in this mess and she knows that Naomi may not mind but she shouldn't have to be putting up with it either.

"Not your fault and Pierce looked like he could use a break so it's probably best for everyone. I think I may offer to watch them a few days a week, just to help out and kind of keep an eye on them."

"Yeah." Addison pauses a second, "Sam has the key and he knows the security code."

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Naomi jokes and falls into a chair on the deck. When she doesn't get a reply she dives in, "So how are you? How's Mark?"

"Fine, we're good." Addison pushes away the thoughts of little socks and meaningless words and tries to focus.

"Oh you aren't giving me any details? After that horribly long conversation we had to have last week I don't get any details?"

"There's nothing to say Nae."

"Oh come on. He at least got you something right? You guys exchanged gifts?"

"No." Addison lies, "I had to work today and we just got home a few hours ago. I didn't know- I couldn't think of what to get him and obviously he didn't expect to be here so we're just...hanging out."

"Hanging out? Is that good or bad?"

"It's good I think."

"Ok." Naomi smiles at Addison's distant voice, "And how are my nieces doing? Growing strong?"

"Yeah." Addison lets her hand fall to her stomach for a brief second before pulling it away. "Listen I have to go but tell Ellie I said hello-"

"You don't want to talk to her? I could go get her, I bet she'd love-"

"No, no. I need to get back inside and figure out something for dinner" she lies again, "so just...give her a hug for me and the other little monster too, ok?"

"Ok." Naomi nods at her friend's shaky voice and ends the conversation on a much different note than it began on. She assumed it would be a bad day and there would be nothing she could say right but it doesn't take away the longing to fix everything. She's motherly, she can't help it.

* * *

"How is she?" Mark asks when Addison makes her way back inside.

"She's good."

"What did she want?"

"Just to say Merry Christmas." Addison skulks back to the couch and pulls the blanket over her growing children so she can make believe they aren't there.

"Oh." Mark follows suit but stays a few feet away, his hands neatly placed on his lap, "You want to finish talking?"

"I thought we did." Addison replies and grabs the remote so some muted sounds can fill the room that, at present, only consists of them both breathing in the tension.

"I have other things to say."

"Ok."

"And I have other things to ask. We should work on this." Mark acknowledges and scoots a little closer.

Addison picks at the hem on the blanket and prepares herself for the war. She tucks her quick wit to the back of her mind and leaves the grenades of her sassed tongue right where they belong. Mark doesn't want defensive. He wants to wrap everything up in a neat and shiny bow so he can attempt to move on. "Go ahead."

"Can I touch you?" Mark holds his hand over her knee and waits for the ok. "I don't like that I need to ask that you know." He admits quietly.

"Sorry." Addison bites her lip and fixes her gaze on the television a few feet away. Sharks fill the screen and begin to swim around the cage the poor diver is stuck in with his camera and she can't help but feel the same way...minus the metal protection.

"And I hate when you check out and go into your own little world like you are trying to do right now." He snatches the remote from her lap and turns the sharks off. They have things to resolve. "And I can't understand why you want to stay here in this tiny apartment, what is that?"

"I don't know. I needed somewhere and Callie said-"

"You could buy a house, you could buy several houses and yet here you are, so why don't you just come home with me Addison?"

She wrings the soft material around her hands a few times and tries to explain something she hasn't even figured out yet. California was her safe haven, her port in the storm, her go to place to feel all better and for some reason she doesn't want that right now. She wants Seattle and all its rain and her storage locker full of things from the life of her long lost marriage. It takes a while to get over. She just needs some more time and yet she knows it is running out at the same time. Trying to find a balance as the sand drips through the hourglass is tiring at best. "I can't."

"You can but you won't. So why?"

"I don't know." Addison admits a few minutes later.

Mark releases a puff of air loudly, "And why-"

"Can we stop...for today...can we stop please?" Addison holds her hands out. She's had enough.

"I want to make this work."

"I know that." She swallows, "I do know that and I am sure I am absolutely infuriating but it's Christmas and I don't want to cry anymore and I just want to stop, okay?"

"Addison-"

"Please," she cuts him off near frantic, "please, please, please stop."

"Okay." Mark nods and stills the hand that she is tapping against her own thigh. "But we need to do this sooner or later, deal?" He watches her head bounce up and down and then settles when he turns the television back on. So much for moving forward. "Do you want some dinner? Are you hungry?"

"No." Addison responds and knots his fingers with hers subtly so he'll stay put.

"We should eat anyway, I bet the kids would like a snack." He reaches out to graze her stomach but is met with a hard slap on his forearm, "What are you-"

"Sorry." She blurts out immediately. Knee jerk reactions are going to get her in a lot of trouble. She has a feeling.

Mark rubs the stinging red splotch on his arm for a second while staring at her incredulously. If she is paying attention she doesn't show it. "Just for that you're eating. Now."

"I said I don't want anything."

"I don't care what you want, I care what they want, I care that they are healthy."

"Mark, I'm fine. They're fine. We're all fine so just..." she pats the couch as he starts to pace to the kitchen, "sit down and when we are both hungry we will eat, I promise..." and she doesn't know who she is kidding because neither one of them believe her when she opens her mouth anymore, "Until then I just want to be with you, ok?" She grins, knowing he is coming right back to her and he'll drop the subject.

So attention deprived and wanton is he that as soon as she finds a way to clamber into his lap and snuggle up, he completely forgets about why they were fighting or what was supposed to be happening. Her intoxicating smell drifts into his nose as they watch the many finned sea creatures swirl on the screen ten feet away. Slowly, as their combined warmth begins to overtake him his eyelids slide to close and just like that he's already lost the battle.

Addison smirks when she looks up an hour later and he's down for the count. There's something to be said for being able to manipulate unfavorable situations and with Mark it's easy to occasionally suspend reality and live in another world that doesn't revolve around lies, mistrust, and unanswered questions that terrified hearts ask day in and day out.

Sometimes love is too forgiving.

* * *

"What do you think?" Mark bites the straw of his already mangled soft drink and looks up from his crossword.

"Think about what?" Addison replies, distantly, from behind her book. She stretches her legs out on the hotel couch and the digs her toes into the spot where the cushion and arm connect. The hotel was jointly decided upon three days after Christmas when they walked in on Cristina and Dr. Savoy going at it on Addison's "bed". Fortunately, Callie also agreed to return to the hotel, short term until she can find an apartment because Yang is not well suited for roommates. For now, she resides across the hall and annoys Mark by popping in at inconvenient times and telling stories of gossip that make him want to drown in the mini bar but it seems to occupy Addison and make her smile so he takes it in stride. He occupies his pain by focusing on her. It seems fair that they both have something to fall back on.

"You wanna go to that thing tonight?"

"The New Year's fundraiser that Richard has already demanded that we both be at? That thing?" She's pretty sure she complied with her boss's wishes about seven weeks ago when she took her job back.

"Well, I don't work there so...we could skip. Get Chinese food, hang out here and watch the ball drop, you know if you can manage to stay awake that long." He smirks and ducks when a red throw pillow tries to connect with his head.

"It was a twenty minute nap. Get off my back."

"I thought you liked me on your back." Mark retorts immediately, falling into their old patterns of banter and trying to pretend like it's not a rare thing. In the days since Christmas there have been few talks of anything consequential and so far all he has managed to establish is that he wants to be with her for the duration of this life (while knowing she doubts him) and that they need to talk. Every time he presses one issue or another she reflexively combats him and curls into a ball citing the need for sleep...and then stares at the wall for hours without talking. That he doesn't like to see so for today he's avoiding all of it in the name of a good time. He figures baby steps will eventually get them back to good.

"Haha. And yes, we are going tonight. I already had Todd find a tux for you, it's in the closet." She points with a wayward finger as Mark grumbles and finds his way to the black masterpiece carefully tucked in beside Addison's gold floor length gown.

"You wearing this?" He fingers the smooth silk.

"Going to try." She replies halfheartedly.

"I'm going to be on your back all night then." He grins and runs a hand over the low dipping fabric. Self restraint will be difficult, he's foreseeing that issue already.

"Mark-"

"I know, I know. I'm on my best behavior. You have hospital big wigs to impress...and I'm just your lowly male escort."

Addison finally peers up over her glasses to see Mark grazing the dress she bought yesterday. In a true test she managed to be out in public for more than three hours and even managed to try a few things on before needing to escape back to her little hole. Slowly but surely she's coming around and now all she needs is a little down time before her hair gets wound into a tight knot and her smile is forced to become permanent while everyone in the room gets rip roaring drunk and make believes that they have the best lives ever. "I'd rather stay in."

"Maybe we can compromise and slip out early?" He shrugs and turns back around.

"Maybe." Addison agrees and knows that they won't.

Four hours later, after battling with not only the curling iron but also her mascara wand, Addison emerges from the bathroom and brushes the dress over her hips making sure it's straight before slipping into the strappy heels she laid out earlier by the bed. Across the room Mark sits, with his back to her, watching the news and wrinkling his tux as he slouches into the cushions. She checks the mirror one more time and makes sure none of the hair that is pulled together on the back of her head is going to come loose and then clears her throat to get Mark's attention. "So?" She slowly twirls looking over her shoulder for some sort of reaction as he sits quietly.

"It's...good...very nice...dress." Mark stammers, looking at how everything is seemingly growing into place on her body. Her curves are a little fuller, the bump is ridiculously cute and the open back of the dress makes him want to drag her down the ground right now and have his way with her. "You look very...good."

She chuckles a little as he adjusts his crooked bow tie. "Let me help." She motions for him to come closer. Her hands correct the black fabric slowly and then trail down his chest. Mark dressed up is almost better than Mark dressed down and her second trimester sex drive is definitely on right now. For the last two days it's been everything she can think of to keep her hands busy so she doesn't give in and send them right back where they began.

His fingers find her hips and slowly stroke trying to remain gentle and loving and not purposeful and lust filled. "So let's get this show on the road."

* * *

It took Addison about three minutes on the dance floor to remember that Mark can't really do anything but sway back and forth meaninglessly and about five minutes for her to realize that there were going to be many eyes on them tonight for various reasons. The event, unanimously voted, is being held on the bottom floor of a hotel across town instead of the hospital cafeteria or something equally unappealing because it's a fundraiser and it would be no fun with sick people coding and nurses rushing through on their break. Addison is glad to be outside of the walls of her domain but it's also a little unnerving to have to make small talk with people she can't and won't remember come tomorrow morning. She smiles, offers a quick handshake and then scurries through the conversations as fast as humanly possible while still being polite and then she rushes to find Mark so she can look busy.

People have lost interest in Mark since he came out to the West coast. In New York he was a big deal, now here, up above all the plastic people in California he's almost just another name especially when he's stuck next a woman who not only saves lives but helps bring them into the world. His ego doesn't mind a few knocks every now and again about how his job is a joke but the fact remains that he is a surgeon and a damn good one so he's not surprised when they are separated by different groups of people after having been there for only fifteen minutes. He chats about famous people without revealing who he has worked on and doesn't mention that he can remember nearly every burn victim he's ever worked on and has already forgotten half of the big names he's reconstructed. Mark's never minded helping people fix what's on the outside to feel better about the inside but he feels more purposeful when the patients on his table aren't there because they called and consulted him.

"There you are." Addison says softly and joins the small huddle of men with loosened ties and glasses of alcohol concoctions she would die to get her hands on right now.

"Mr. Hammond, Mr. Harris, Mr. Nelson this is Dr. Montgomery." He tugs her into his side a little so they can all get a glimpse of his date, "Addison this is Barry, William and James."

"How do you do." Addison smiles and then looks up at Mark, "Would you gentlemen mind if I stole him for a few minutes?" She continues the happy face and bats her eyelashes pitifully as they all nod and find excuses to walk away.

"Smooth." Mark commends, taking her hand and leading her further away from the masses near the far wall of the room that is scattered with cup littered tables and two open bars. The silver and gold balloons above their heads dance as the sounds reverberate from speakers located at every turn of a corner and Addison feels like she is stuck at a middle school dance all over again. The least Richard could do was hire someone to decorate instead of sticking the interns on helium patrol.

"Thank you."

"So..."

"So." Addison nods, trying not to look at the clock on the wall that says they have two more minutes to hide before 2008 and begins.

"Wanna dance?"

"With you?" Addison raises an eyebrow.

"Oh come on. You know you like it." Mark teases and snakes an arm around her waist to pull her closer as they make their own dance floor in a secluded corner. "Maybe they won't notice we're missing if we stay back here."

"Good point." She relaxes her head and lets it come to a fall on his shoulder. "Thanks for coming with me. I know you rather would have been in a bar somewhere playing pool and drinking but-"

"Anywhere you are is where I want to ring in the New Year." Mark whispers and lets his hot breath tingle down her neck.

Addison feels the redness of her cheeks blush over as the heat of his words course through her body. "Me too."

"I love-" Mark stops as the chorus of drunkards rings through the room, "10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Happy New Year!"

Addison closes her eyes and waits for Mark's lips to find hers but instead is met with words. "It's going to be a good year. I have a feeling. It's our year this time."

Her eyes flash open in surprise just as his hand slips up to the back of her head and he rushes in for the kiss she wanted ten seconds ago. She moans in surprise and then gives in as his tongue brushes over her bottom lip not so covertly. The tangle and fight for dominance for nearly a minute before Addison pulls back to breathe. She swallows heavily, eyes dusted with want, "Maybe we should go now."

"Only if you want to." Mark replies but is unable to stop pressing her into the wall they found about ten seconds in to their little dance of mouths and sex deprived needs. At one point he was certain she was about to jump up and wrap her legs around his waist but then remembered where they were and got it under control.

She nods vigorously, "I want to go...upstairs. Now."

"We don't live- oh." Mark smirks, "You're sure?"

"Do you understand what it's like to be on all the time and be forced to watch you strut around all night in this?" He shakes his head and she grins while pressing a palm into the white material of his shirt, "I'm positive."

"Ok then." He grabs her hand eagerly and they dash out of the room into the hallway looking for the row of elevators they came up on. Once inside he pushes her into the handrail and fumbles with the numbers.

"Lobby Mark, we need the lobby." She directs and then kisses his jaw distractingly before he gets it and the correct button lights up.

"Right." He slides a hand around her and plunges below the dress, "No underwear tonight? Classy."

"Shut up." She resumes the assault on his neck but he reaches for her hips and lifts her before she can make any progress. She hooks her ankles around him without any thought as he places feathery kisses down her cleavage. "We should...stop...before the doors..." She's cut off by the sharp ding of their arrival and she slides back down off of him as inauspiciously as possible. Unfortunately, they catch a few wayward glances of other patrons anyway. He guides her in front of him warding off any more unwanted looks and even manages to gets his hands around her when they stop at the counter. His fingertips rub over her growing stomach with the knowledge that she won't push him away while she is talking to the poor clerk who is stuck working this holiday. "One room please."

"What kind-"

"Don't care, we just want a room."

"Suite." Mark corrects when she gets overly anxious.

"Ok. Let me check." The clerk strikes the keys painfully slow and Addison sighs under her breath when Mark's head comes to a rest on her shoulder.

"Patience." He reminds her.

She spins around and latches onto his lips before he can tell her what else to do and she can feel his body give in as his hands tense and then press into her back, slowly drifting up to try and find her hair.

"Uh..here's...your room...on the fifteenth-" Addison grabs Mark's wallet out of his pocket and slaps a card down on the counter cutting the manchild behind them off.

"Thanks." She grins after he runs the card and snatches the key. She saunters off to the elevator again leaving Mark slack-jawed to play catch up.

"Man." The clerk exclaims.

"Yeah." Mark agrees.

Once securely inside the metal capsule Mark finally finds the nerve, "What was that?"

"I was getting our room faster."

"I like this year already." He nods appreciatively. Never has Addison been one for any sort of risky public displays of affection, especially if she's sober.

She smiles when he pins her to the wall again and the pick up where they left off. They're bringing a lot of last year's baggage on board with them and certainly a new year doesn't really mean a fresh start but sometimes all they need is a reason to forget and celebrate. Sometimes all they need is a reason to love without having to worry and this beginning provides that at least for now; for tonight. The shelter of balloons and bad punch allows them temporary reprieve from the hurt and memories. It vacuum seals them into a world where they are just Mark and Addison and for that they are both grateful.

* * *


	34. Tales of manic, reckless rides

**_--  
Inside a nightmare dream  
Half in hell and half serene  
It comes as no surprise  
Tales of manic, reckless rides_**

**_How long can one sustain  
Lead a life so far from sane  
Only time can say  
How long you can beat your game  
_**_- Lemon Sun, "Stranger"_**_  
--_**

Acutely aware of that fact that she needs a bathroom, Addison untangles her legs from Mark's and pads slowly across the short carpet that has a much different layout than her good old hotel room across town. She pauses, briefly, staring at him as he rests peacefully, the sheets completely sideways and half off the bed. Last night was good. Last night was great. Better than she remembers it ever being- that she would like to blame on the increased hormones though. Her fingers hit the cool metal handle and she knows it was a mistake. That they went too far, too fast and now there will be more problems than she wants but she can't help but pull back the covers minutes later after she's back in the room and straddle Mark's lap.

She has needs and he's never complained about being woken up with sex. Hesitantly she traces a few fingers around the grooves of his chest, taking time to appreciate his figure without him being awake and trying to speed things up or smirking with pride over his chiseled features. Skin on skin, electrifying the coursing desire between her legs, she finally strays from her project and firmly grasps him. His eyes fly wide open and then suddenly clamp closed again with a low moan and a soft grin when she begins stroking him hard. "Morning."

"Morning." She replies and shifts in order to prepare for what she badly wants but he flips them both gently, having been awake for the last ten minutes anyway- since she got up.

"I bet you think you're pretty sneaky." Mark slides a smooth finger along her already wet center as she wriggles beneath his adventurous hands.

"I...try." She manages to get out before he dips into her and begins twisting and turning in a way that makes her toes curl and her heart pound. Eventually the light headed feeling she has going on breaks way for a huge release of pressure as her muscles contract mercilessly around his digits. When she comes to, ears still numb to the softest of sounds, she tries to get him to roll back over so she can handle the pace but instead of giving in Mark lets his lips trail her stomach and flicks the tip of his tongue along her navel on his way down to give her the full experience of his mouth.

"Let me." He whispers huskily as he bats her hands away and stills her hips because she is blatantly still not okay with him being anywhere near the cute bump, even if it is going to involve mind blowing sex.

"I can't." She whimpers and tries to push the top of his head further along when he stills and begins torturing her. This is definitely killing the moment. She struggles to sit up and get away as Mark groans in frustration.

"Addison come back. I'll stop, I swear. You can be on top or whatever...Addison." He pleads as she stomps toward the bathroom, intent on taking her shower alone.

All he gets is the door slamming in response and a slight shiver from her refusal.

**_--_**

"I brought you juju." Mark holds the cup out as a peace offering while carefully gauging her response. She hasn't spoken all morning, since the incident, and now at noon thirty safely back in the confines of a place that should never be thought of as home, he'd really like to get this resolved before they have to head uptown for her doctor's appointment. That is if she's still going to allow him to go. "Please Addison." He sets the cup down on the coffee table and nudges it toward her. This is not how he envisioned this morning going and he's been dreaming about it for well over three months now. Inadvertently, Mark went the sixty days. Not when he was supposed to but he did do one round of more than sixty days and even if he did almost screw Meredith it should count. What he wanted to do today was relax in bed and clutch her like a prize and maybe go another few rounds before getting up and accomplishing their collective errands. He wanted perfection. What he's getting is the silent treatment.

She takes the hot cup and sips it softly, letting the liquid warm her insides on the way down. It hits her gurgling stomach like lead and she's up and off the couch in under thirty seconds and well into her second round of heaving before Mark even manages to make it to her side. He retorts something about morning sickness supposedly being over and she bites her tongue, holding her ground, and loosing a few more battles with her body in the process. She doesn't fight against him when he strokes her back and holds her hair but at the same time she doesn't let her body lean into his and she certainly doesn't grip his offered hand when she stands. What she does do is another cycle of teeth brushing. Then she moves on to fixing her hair again and finally drifts from the room like nothing is out of the ordinary when in fact the truth is she hasn't thrown up in weeks and she's a little weary of why it's happening. It could be absolutely nothing, it could be her children rejecting Mark's juju which makes her laugh a little on the inside somewhere that she can't find, or there could be the beginning of a larger issue.

She decides not to worry about anything or let her mind drift to any more problems by grabbing her book and snuggling back down into the familiar couch as Mark nervously paces the room and asks if she feels okay. Clearly she is wonderful. On all accounts.

"God are you always this- this...infuriating?"

"Yes." Addison breaks the quiet, and affirms his thoughts.

"Oh you do have a voice. Shocking." Mark spits immediately, unable to stop himself.

"I'm fine." She rolls her eyes and burrows her feet into the space between the cushions.

Mark waits a few seconds, taking deep breaths, and calming his brewing storm. "Sorry about earlier- I thought, you always liked it before-"

"Well I don't now." She cuts him off and flips a page, both knowing she isn't really reading much of anything and is simply looking at the print until it blurs.

"Noted."

"Good." She ignores the fact that he purposefully continued with his endeavors this morning to get a rise out of her and chalks it up to him testing his boundaries which she will have to painstakingly make clearer.

"Do you want some water or crackers or something?" Mark shuffles around the room aimlessly, already dressed, trying to find something to do like calling room service.

"No."

"Can we talk-"

"No." She strikes preemptively. She needs to get through this exam first. All of her energy is focused on not getting all up in arms about anything. The last problem she wants is high blood pressure or something equally inane that will send her to bed rest and take away her fun job toy. Work is mandatory to avoidance and avoidance is how Addison gets through everyday. Somehow she doesn't see Mark going along with that just yet.

"I would like to talk about it." He blurts out feeling like a stupid twelve year old girl. Never has he wanted to express emotions and ideas with anyone but her and now she's shooting him down and making him work for every ounce of gratitude and love.

Just like old times.

Addison takes a deep breath and lets the weight of his worried expression wash over her in rough crashes. She agreed to work on this- on them and she is very pleased that he is back in her life even if it's difficult and even when he pushes her past her limits on purpose. "I can't." She tries by way of explaining her focus.

"You have a voice." Mark retorts, having heard it in all pitches and decibels.

"I just- I don't want you to do that to me again and I would appreciate it in the future if you kept your hands...and tongue away."

His forehead scrunches in confusion because she's always rather enjoyed his hands...and tongue in places but he's male and still trying by means of moving mountains and picking up oceans to get to her; to get back to them. "I don't get it." He clicks the television back off and stomps to the place where her long arms are nestled carefully in a dark blue sweater that does nothing to hide the fact that she is growing by the second. Evidently, they are out of the stage where she even thinks she can hide it.

Addison's head falls at his admission, knowing that if she's going to share and not shut down in complete, there will have to be more clarification on the dos and don'ts of touching her while she is carting around two other lives. What's worse is knowing that Mark is always somewhat intuitive, though still very much himself, and is also incredibly observant- regardless of whether or not he chooses to act on the things he notices. "I need to get through this."

Oddly cryptic words hanging from the damp air Mark responds, "I'm trying to help with that."

"I know."

"Addison-" He begins again but is cut short by her climbing strategically into his lap and making sure that his fingers are far away from her stomach. In a rare moment of honesty he traces light patterns over her thighs and responds, "You have to tell me. I'm a wreck here, you have to give...guidance," his voice drops down to a low hum, "before I screw it all up again."

She nudges her head up under his chin and shifts until her aching spine is resting against the back of the couch, her legs spread out over his lap. "I don't want to talk about it." Because she can't and sadly it is that simple. She can't go there right now. There are other things to take concern with. Her eyes slip closed when she reaches a definitive plan, "I don't feel well, maybe later?"

"Ok." Mark nods, weaving her silky locks through his knuckles and trying to ignore the fact that it feels like she is purposefully wiggling free of the conversation. "Later...promise?"

She never answers as the seconds tick down on the clock in the corner and he never expects her to. They've reached an unhealthy stalemate where neither is willing to give in or up. So much for fresh starts.

**_--_**

"You must be the father," Dr. Dillard smiles warmly at Mark and extends his hand, "nice to meet you."

Mark hesitates to correct him and takes the old wrinkly hand briefly before turning his attention back to Addison who is impatiently swinging her legs off the exam table. Her eyes dart around landing on nothing and clearly giving away how nervous she is.

"Let's get started then, that all right Ms. Montgomery?" He crosses the room, not waiting for an answer, remembering vividly their last appointment about a month ago and remains astonished that she showed back up.

"Doctor." Mark rectifies immediately. Years of listening to her paving the way for the thoughtless remark.

"Yes?" The older man turns back around.

"I-uh, Addison is-" Mark pauses when he catches the bewildered look in her eyes, "Never mind." She's gone back to doing that scary thing where she stares at walls and Mark never knows exactly where she goes in these times, hiding in the dark recesses of her mind, but he's chalking it up to the impending appointment and letting her get away with it for now.

"Let's have a look." Dr. Dillard clears his throat and hurries through the procedure, noting how the other male in the room, watches with what he likes to call "first-time-parent" fascination. He measures, sighs, checks heartbeats, asks questions that get no real answers and then is wiping the now warm goop off of the small stomach in front of him. "We have a nutritionist." He begins, watching her face flare up and grabbing the tall guy's attention. "It's just...you've only gained three pounds in the last few weeks and I didn't say anything last time because...I just didn't say anything but both of your daughters are too small for this stage in your pregnancy, twin A slightly larger than twin B, and I'm beginning to suspect that we may have larger issues if this isn't taken seriously. Right now their heartbeats are strong and they appear to be developing at a decent rate, aside from being underweight, but I'd like to take the precaution and have you speak to our nutritionist."

Addison hops from the table, dragging down her sweater in the process and keeping her own fingers clear of the two beings they are discussing before snagging her purse from Mark's lap and exiting the room wordlessly. If there's one thing she knows, it's this and she won't have some old elf looking man tell her that she's doing anything wrong...even if he does have a point of sorts.

"She always like this?" Dr. Dillard asks exasperated as Mark lingers behind, watching the elder man begin to clean up a little.

Mark grins, "Yeah." Dr. Dillard runs his hands over his soft face and sighs as Mark fidgets in his chair, "Is she- are they going to be okay?"

"Honestly," the other man sinks down into a chair and pulls at his buttoned collar, "if things keep progressing the way I've seen the last month then no, they will not be all right. Of course, I don't have her entire file, I barely have her medical background because she looked like she was going to bolt when I was asking those questions so I rushed through-"

"Hang on." Mark calls out and darts from the room. He storms back into the waiting area, where Addison sits, ankles crossed primly, because he was smart enough to put the car keys in the front pocket of his jeans, and grabs her arm tugging her up.

"Mark-"

"No. Come with me." He looks around the room hesitantly, not wanting to fight in front of all the crazy, hormonal, pregnant women.

"I'm done here." Addison holds up a hand and gives him the look of death. He shouldn't cross it, she's not in the mood today for his shenanigans no matter how well meaning.

"We," he stresses the word and skims a hand across her stomach, "are not done here. Almost though and then we can go out for ice cream?" He wiggles his eyebrows, clearly playful so no one will catch on to the real problems behind everything. When she doesn't reply he drags her back behind the personnel only door and tightly laces his fingers with hers.

Addison comes to a dead stop about four feet into the narrow hallway. "Mark, I-"

"Shut up." Mark snarls. "Just shut up and let's finish this and then we can discuss it or you can go do whatever it is you want to do."

"I am done here." She waves her free hand around trying to reiterate her point.

"Well the rest of our little fucked up family is not." He smacks a hand into his forehead when she digs her heels in and refuses to budge. Time to play to another side because Mommy Addison is clearly not the rational one. "Question."

"What?" She growls, embarrassed by being stuck in the hall in a virtual stand off when all she wants to do is go "home" and scratch out a few notes for her cases tomorrow. She has work to do.

"When your patients don't listen to you what-"

"Don't Mark." She cuts him off, "This isn't like that. I am not- I know what I am doing."

"Do you?"

"Yes!" She nearly screams, way beyond aggravated.

"Good then we agree." He loops his other arm around her back and gives her a shove with a fake smile plastered to his face when a nurse passes by them staring oddly. They struggle all the way back to the exam room, Addison annoyed that she gave him anything to work with, Mark pleased with himself for figuring out a good angle. At the risk of her being seriously angered twice in one day Mark takes a deep breath, prepared to explain himself (and all of the so incredibly obvious reasons why this is extremely important) when she jolts free of his wrath and says not to bother with whatever speech he is planning because she doesn't care.

"I needed a restroom." Addison tries lamely, clicking her way back to the exam table and sliding up onto it. "You were saying?"

Dr. Dillard glances back and forth between the pair and decides that this Mark guy definitely has some balls or a serious handle on the feisty redhead. "I was saying I'd like you to speak to our nutritionist. Maybe you can work out a plan-"

"Dr. Dillard," Addison smiles charmingly, "I realize that I am a little behind where I should be but-"

"You're severely underweight for multiples given the weight you say you start-" He corrects sensing that she doesn't care to play.

"Be that as it may, I can assure you that I am trying and I am certain that this will no longer be a problem, right Honey?" She smirks at Mark who merely rubs his twitching eye in response. He has lost the battle.

"I still think it would be best if you maybe spoke to her, just briefly." The doctor interjects.

"It couldn't hurt...Pookie." Mark offers up, remembering the relentless teasing that happened when that once slipped out of his mouth before. He didn't think she was awake, it wasn't his fault.

"Let's make a deal," Addison offers, clasping her hands together on her knees and bringing out the professional voice. The tone that soothes mothers in pain and frantic interns who try to drop everything into open bodies, "We can set up another appointment right now for a month or three weeks or whatever you are comfortable with and if I haven't made enough progress at that time then we can speak about other options."

"I don't think you understand how critical this is. If I let you go another two weeks or a month at the same rate then we are chancing serious complications to both-"

"Dr. Dillard," Addison chides, "I can eat. Trust me. I've been stressed out with some life things but it's going to be okay now, things have quieted down." Her eyes dance up to Mark's and he's surprised to find she isn't lying through her teeth. She genuinely - from what he can tell - and sincerely seems to think that things are going to be okay and he can't help but smirk when he realizes it is because he is here. Addison always gives, just not when you're expecting it Mark has found, and it is generally well hidden beneath the veil of everything else consuming her day but when she's heartfelt there's no better feeling in the world.

"I would really prefer that you speak to Dr. Burton but I can't make you do anything. I just want you to know the risks you are running. Can you understand that?"

Addison bites her cheek. She can't sit here and listen to him list off the complications that can arise from twins with low birth weight or even being born prematurely. She's not willing to entertain the idea of anything being wrong with her children, hell, she's hardly willing to entertain the idea that they exist outside of a general understanding. "I'm a board certified OBGYN. I get it." She assures with a sweet smile.

"You're a-"

"I'm a surgeon technically at Seattle Grace Hospital." She shrugs like there's no big deal. If the sham is going to blow wide open, it's going to happen at her own hand, under her manipulative control.

"Oh." The older man's brow furrows. At the very least it all makes more sense but at any rate this makes it near worse- that is for her to comprehend completely what is happening and yet still continue on the reckless course that she evidently is pleased with.

"Ok, so next month." Mark clears his throat when they two enter a staring contest, neither willing to break first.

"I'm not comfortable with this," Dr. Dillard announces and scratches a few notes into the chart on his lap, "Three weeks, not a day more. Also, in light of your recent revelation and the current situation I'd like to suggest that you seriously begin to consider a leave of absence. Your pregnancy has been relatively easy until now I assume but surgery is a demanding field and-"

"Really?"

Mark looks down as feisty Addison comes out to play and sends up a small prayer to the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy or whatever that this poor old man isn't going to get eaten alive for his "suggestions". God help them all. To his credit, Dr. Dillard, plunges on ignoring her blatant and distasteful reactions to his approach. On the way out, Mark assures the doctor that he will do his best for everyone and get Addison to calm down and slow down before something unfavorable can occur. On her way out the door, Addison juxtaposes her rotten behavior and makes sure to set up the next appointment, going so far as to smile at the black haired woman behind the desk.

**_--_**

Mark pulls into the busy drive through fully intent on getting a milkshake for his troubles. He needs a prize for what just happened in there. He orders without asking what she wants, simply adding a few things here and there that he doesn't think she'll turn her nose up to which is a feat in and of itself. The stagnant line stays stuck behind a white van with what must be the most massive order of cheeseburgers and fries ever. The silence is back, Addison with her feet pressed firmly into the dash, scrolling through her blackberry doing heaven knows what and Mark fidgeting with the radio. He turns up the notched dial a touch when he finds something he knows and grins when her toes begin to tap the beat, perfectly in time, on the hard surface beneath them. At least he can do one thing right.

"Addison?" He asks quietly, carefully tucking the white bag of greasy goodness under her legs on the black mat.

"I still do not want to discuss it and if you think I am eating anything in that disgusting sack you are dead wrong." Her eyes never leave the phone but her tone is venom filled and pungent.

"I got fries."

Her lips purse in thought, contemplating the delicious hotness of salt and fried potato, "No."

His breath expels out into the cool rain as his fingers fumble with the button on the wet door panel next to him. "You know their growth will begin to slow at 30 weeks-"

"Stop it."

"And you are already what- 23 weeks?"

"24 and a half." Addison retorts immediately and regrets it as soon as it leaves her mouth.

"He shouldn't have given you those three weeks." Mark flips his signal on and enters the drenched freeway to head back across town. "You scare him but you don't scare me." Well, frankly, she scares the holy hell out of him but a firm hand needs to be applied in this scenario and he's just the man for the job. He's the only man. Instead of continuing on his slow crawling pace Mark exits from his track amidst her protests and pulls into the nearest parking lot, in this case belonging to a 7-11 and some gas station.

"What are we doing?"

He drums a few fingers along the steering wheel in thought, "I love you."

"Ok." She nods, growing more concerned by the second. A knock-down-drag-out fight is not what she needs. Especially one that starts with that clause.

"I love you and I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. I know self-destructive when I see it." He pauses for a second after veering off course sharply, "You want kids Addie, I know you do, I know you know you do. I don't know why you're fighting so hard against all of us...we're trying to help-"

"I don't need help." She inserts, pulling her bare feet from the dash.

"Stop interrupting. Just listen for once in your life." He watches her blue eyes widen and fill with water as his head hangs, "If they don't make it, if these girls don't get to experience all the frustrations and joys of life because you can't find it in yourself to inhale a few extra slices of pie or pizza- well that's going to be on your shoulders...forever." He toys with the scar on his left palm attempting to put together words in coherent sentences that can be both concise and meaningful and then gives up, "I know you care...somewhere in there...if you didn't, you wouldn't go to all of the appointments and pretend to count raindrops while their heartbeats fill the room. I don't know why you're insistent on lying to everyone about what you do for a living, I don't know why you aren't at least somewhat happy about the twins and I don't know where you go half of the time when you stare at nothing but I know you want this. Old Addison wants this."

"Old Addison is dead." She can't help herself. If he's going to be an ass and make her cry and yet still be oddly sweet in a Mark sort of way then she's going to clue him in a little.

"No. Derek is dead...," he replies slowly wishing that for ten seconds that fun factoid of life could be ignored, "but that's got nothing to do with us right now. With them."

There are nine hundred reasons that have to do with the twins and Derek and even her sister and all of that mess but Mark's hand is reaching into her personal space and flipping down the passenger's side visor, lifting the flap where the mirror lies and trying to adjust it to something. Slowly his wandering hand reaches under the blue fabric of her sweater and pulls it up uncovering her stomach in all of its too small glory. And when his fingers tangle with hers, his palm pressed into the back of her hand and come to a rest on her warm skin her ability to compute anything completely ceases. She spasms instantly, trying to fold her hand into a fist, but his grip is too strong and when he whispers, "Feel them," into her ear she loses it completely for the first time since her self imposed silent brick wall went up.

The faint taps, that admittedly should be harder, begin to register slowly and her heart swells filling the empty void that has been so common place. For three whole minutes there is something to fall back on, something to look forward too, something else to focus on other than the misery and hopelessness that she won't allow her self to stop digesting day in and day out. As soon as he releases his grip she dips her hands into her sleeves look for reprieve from the tears and searching for a warm snuggly place where everything she does isn't wrong.

Mark tugs her shirt back down, unsure if it worked, if anything managed to make it clear to her that there are more important things than wallowing in the horrid black cavern of her life. He plops the fries from the bag into her lap with the simple elaboration, "It's not healthy but it's a start. Give them a chance to fight."

On the slow trip back to the hotel room she manages as many fries as she can handle until they get cold and gross and half of Mark's strawberry milkshake. It's a beginning but her previous inaction may prove too difficult to overcome and that notion is enough to leave her quietly sobbing for the rest of the car ride, even as she tries to chew and swallow. Every plan she's made is collapsing in on itself and choking her with the dust and debris.

**_--_**

After scrubbing her face clean from its moisture and wasted mascara, Addison slipped into a pair of plaid pajama pants and settled in with her cases for tomorrow. Nothing new, nothing extraordinary but still things that require her undivided attention just the same. Attention, that is, that she is having a difficult time devoting as her mind swirls relentlessly. The pen stills in her hand and then begins to whack the scribbled notes in the margin of the white paper. Anna Hernandez, age 25, gestation 29 weeks...it all smears together. She clears her throat and gives the thin skinned writing utensil a break.

The rain, that seems to somehow fall from the sky completely sideways, beats against the sliding glass door to the balcony without reprieve. The little droplets of water run together down the clear panel, slowly helped by gravity until they reach the already collected puddles on the wet wood below. Sometimes she can just sit and nothing ever happens. None of the thoughts are resolved, none become more important or less pertinent, everything remains the same. She wishes today was one of those dates where nothing was a solution but it seems that, as a true calling to her character, she has managed to screw it all up again.

She runs down the mental checklist Violet gave her once (while she acted completely uninterested and drained the green gunk from her glass). Things to be happy about when the crazy world was knocking at her door, begging her to drown in vodka or to play dangerously with the feelings of others. She was told to visualize the good, to remember she had things to be thankful for, and then to dwell on those things instead of the others that she had little control over. When gradually her mood would lift she would systematically allow herself to ponder the other things, slowly, sometimes while doing other mundane and routine things like straightening her hair or waiting for the elevator to stop on the right floor. Then there would be resolve. At least that used to work. Until the bad outweighed the good and she lost all of the little trinkets that brought warm feelings of worth and appeal. It all used to be so much easier to deal with. Or to avoid dealing with. Whichever was on the short list for the morning.

Today though, while the lightening floods the sky and the thunder pierces through all of the good things, she harnesses the smidgen of focus she has and takes serious consideration to Mark. Mark, who has sworn (many, many times) to stand by her side, to take care of her (over and over again), and to juggle whatever issues she wanted to throw in that direction. Usually she is an outpouring of feelings and problems. She holds it all in, pushing everything just under the brim of complete occupancy and waits for the lid to pop off and all hell to break lose. She winds up curled into little balls in on call rooms crying for the lives she can't save every year, or screaming at people (who usually deserve what they have coming), or attempting to make a little more room by swallowing some liquor to loosen up the tight edges of her numerous pieces. Now there is black. Inaction. The most amazing sensation of emptiness. She doesn't want to yell, drink or heaven forbid cry again this afternoon. She just wants the right guy and to be happy again. But one doesn't necessarily equal the other in this situation and the tangled histories and last few events weigh heavy on her mind.

So she simply wants to watch the rain and dread every soaked second it takes Mark to come back with the dinner she knows she has to eat. Because that's the answer she has, until she thinks of words and sentences and clear thoughts to share with him. For every minute that there should be joy that he is even here, there is one of complete and utter confusion- cause by the same reason. The desire to know consumes the drenched fire within.

"Addison. Dinner." Mark grunts sometimes later, for all she knows it could have been hours, and drops the large brown paper bag onto the small dining table in front of her. He watches her eyes shift back from the brewing storm outside and glare at the food. "You're eating."

"I never said I wasn't." Her hands idle just long enough for both to know she isn't interested but is willing to appease him at any cost.

Somehow, in the upside down darkness, she wound up with Mark. Just Mark. He's number one and two (of two) on her index of things to be grateful for.

Fingers fumble with the heavy staple that folds the bag over but eventually the Indian cuisine makes its way to the right customer and they chew in as much silence as the clouds will give them.

"Why are you here?" She asks, in between agonizingly slow bites, hoping that if it gets cold enough he won't force her to keep trudging onward. Eating has become a chore so epic she can't even describe it.

"I'm too tired for this conversation." Mark replies, pushing curry sauce around his Styrofoam container. His mood has gone from bad to worse to horrendous and he knows that he'll snap if they begin anything. And Mark should never be held liable for what happens when he snaps.

"It's just a question." She shrugs awkwardly and they both know that it's a lie.

"The eternal question. I don't know why I'm here. Our creators hate me too much to let me die peacefully and are choosing to torment me for all of my wrongdoings in the form of the most stubborn woman I have ever encountered?"

She thinks the outburst is well within his limits and brushes it off waiting for the real answer, wondering if he even has one.

"You're the one that bought the damn plane ticket, why are you asking me that?"

"You didn't have to come."

"You didn't have to send it." He quips back quickly, throat beginning to ache from all the dampness in the air. She'll tell him his body isn't adjusted when he complains in a few hours and he'll hate her even more for it. He was perfectly content to stare at the angry ocean all night and try to work during the day. He was doing well without her. She's a double edged sword and he always manages to fall on the sharpest side.

"I wanted to." She offers meekly, dropping her fork against the wood.

"I want to be here. Good enough?" At her nod, he sighs, "Can we call a truce?" Her face paves into confusion and he clarifies, "It's been a shitty day Addison. You've been mad, I'm still mad, you look exhausted and I want to relax before Webber tries to talk me into staying here tomorrow. So let's call it. I'm done."

"Done?" She squeaks, heart racing.

"With the fighting."

"Ok." She nods, agreeing to the terms of the agreement. "You're talking to Richard tomorrow?"

"I said I would."

"Are you staying?" She asks, sincerely interested. They haven't discussed the coming or going of either.

"I don't know." He shakes his head.

"Oh."

"Are you staying?" He asks, lifting his eyes, trying to find hers. The "talks" are never ending when they are left alone.

She shovels more noodles onto her fork, twirls too quickly and watches them drop off, "I have a contract."

"And you're gainfully employed in the state of California but that didn't stop you from taking another job."

She bypasses the obvious issue of mandatory leave imposed by the Oceanside hooligans, "It's better here."

"Is it?" She nods in response and his stomach sinks a little lower. Somewhere in the back of his mind he always thought this was a layover in Seattle, that soon they would return to her beach house and spend the days snuggling in her comfortably owned bed, waiting for the twins and keeping a close eye on the other two redheads. In his head that's how it played out. The reality is always so much different with her. "Ok."

"So you'll stay?" She offers with no hope and no expectations, just a semblance of what should be asked.

"You won't come back?"

"I can't."

"Won't." He clarifies.

"I...can't." There's no other way to put the words she doesn't have. Things aren't choices anymore.

He saunters away without further prodding, finding a home in the trash can for his smelly dinner and then drifts to the couch for sports scores. It's going to be a long night.

**_--_**

"Dr. Sloan." Richard greets jovially and settles himself behind the large desk again fully prepared to discuss the new terms of his deal.

"Richard." Mark nods and slops his body into the chair in front of him starting to feel like he is meeting his maker. He has a decision to make. He watched her stare out the windows all night and held her close while she squirmed around and feigned sleep. None of it helped. He misses the salty breeze and sand that whips at his flesh when the wind picks up.

"So have you given any thought to the prospect of returning to Seattle Grace?"Richard cracks his knuckles, ready to bargain. A year ago, when he hired Dr. Mark Sloan, it was purely professional, and not to seemingly torture his two favorite attendings. This time, though the money he brings in is beautiful, there is more to the story.

"I have."

"And?" Richard presses insistently.

"I'd like you to put Addison on leave." Mark blurts out, too quickly to appear that he has thought of nothing else since she tucked her head under his chin last night. The increased need for human interaction breaking away from their need to be furious with one another for the day.

The older man's brow creases in confusion and he shakes his head. "I was asking about you, not Dr. Montgomery, who has assured me that she'll let me know when it's time."

"It's time now." Mark clarifies for him. He glances to the large portrait on the wall and waits.

"I don't see what this has to do with your return."

"It has everything to do with it."

"I don't like games Dr. Sloan." Richard snarls, getting impatient.

"No games. Just...Addison needs to be on leave."

"Is this a condition to your return?" His palms overturn, gesturing to the walls and hoping to catch on sooner rather than later. "Is that what you are doing here?"

"No." Mark shakes his head and then he knows. Instantly. Like a flash. "I will not be returning to Seattle Grace under any conditions."

"Does Addie think-"

"Addison doesn't know. I told her I wasn't sure." Mark sighs, "I have a job. One that I'm not at, one that they should probably fire me from because I keep leaving but I have a job and I don't, unlike Addison, want another."

"Ok then." Richard stands, "I have-"

"Put her on leave." Mark nearly begs, cutting him off and standing in his path.

"This isn't a discussion for you and I to be having. I have an endoscopy to get to." He waves Mark off but the younger man refuses to move. "Fine. Why? Why should I pull one of my best surgeons off the floor and force her into early leave? You tell me that Dr. Sloan."

The reasons are not anything Mark came up with. It was just a solution. Put Addison on leave, annoy her into returning to California, at least until she went into labor and then convince her that they were all so much happier down there. "I don't...because she needs to be."

"I'm still missing the why part here and if you are making me late for no good reason-"

"She isn't handling it well."

"She is handling it fine. I've seen her. She's good to the nurses and interns, always polite with her patients and I haven't had one complaint from anyone since she's been back."

"You're buying that?" Mark throws his hands into the air frustrated. They are clearly speaking about different "its". Why does no one see what he sees day in and day out?

"This conversation is over. If you want me to consider putting Addison on leave then you send Addison to me and we," he stresses the word, "will discuss it."

Mark flops onto the well used couch when the door slams so hard the hinges rock. He laid down his cards, and his hand was blown up like dynamite.

**_--_**

"Hey." Addison greets warmly when Mark slips into the elevator on her way down for lunch. She promised to meet Callie today. "How'd it go?" An appropriately placed elbow to his ribs is in order when she gets no reply and he rubs the spot for a second before coming around. "Mark? How did it go?" Her voice drops off when a few stragglers are picked up on the next floor.

"I want you to go on maternity leave now." He lifts his head, neglecting the other passengers and reaches for her hand. Her face tells him that she is unwilling to even approach the idea of discussing this right now but he can't help himself. "And I would like to go back to our respective houses and get back to life. I'm sick of living in a hotel."

When the doors slowly spring open Addison takes the hand that is captured by the man next to her and drags them both down the hall to an empty supply closet. She shuts the door hard trying to bring Mark back to reality and not caring whether or not the nurses just saw her drag him in here. "What-"

"Come home with me Addie. Please."

"Does this mean you didn't take the job?" Addison starts over, clears her throat, and tries to remain steady. Certainly a screaming match is not what the doctor would order. And today is a new day. Or it's trying to be a new day. She feels moderately better than the day before so that has to be something, though she always feels like the days are better when she works. Perhaps the pretending all day dilutes her own mind.

"I asked Richard to put you on leave."

"You what!"

"I want to go home."

"Then go!" Addison screams and reaches for the door knob to open the path for him.

"With you." As he begs, his face softens into the side that hardly ever comes out, the side Addison hates and can rarely deny, whether it be for coffee or a permanent move.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I like my job and the reason why I am choosing to stay here has everything to do with that and nothing to do with anything else?"

"No." Mack acknowledges and finds a rack of gloves to lean against.

"Did you ever think that maybe I don't want to go back there and deal with those...those kids because right now I can't."

"No."

Addison slumps against the cool door losing her steam. "And did you ever maybe notice that I'm happier here then I ever was when I was in California?"

"That's not a fair argument." Mark jumps in. "You're basing that off the assumption that the start value in California was absolute, like you unreasonably expected, but with Seattle all you know is horrible, so in the off chance that it's not, the upper hand is given. It's biased. Plus the only time I really saw you down there was after Reagan...but before, when we went out to dinner with everyone that one night...it was nice until you got sick...you were happy. You could be happy in California again."

She licks her lips in thought. There was a brief few weeks in there where the world wasn't falling down and her biggest problems (known problems, she rationalizes) were trying to fit in with the cool kids at the clinic and emptying all of the boxes in her living room. "I can't go back there. I don't know, I just can't."

"How can you be here then?" Mark grips the metal rail tightly and drops his voice to match hers, "He died on this floor. How can you be here...how can you walk past that room everyday...how can you operate in places he tore brains open...how Addison, because I can hardly stand being in this town let alone..."

Even with the pressing thought of her sister's death in the fore front of her mind she knows that Mark guessed wrong. Surely, being in the place where they let her die wouldn't be pleasant but it's not about that, finally. For once. In some sort of odd sadistic way it's pleasing to be in the last place Derek was. Never a believer in ghosts (in the Casper sense) or any form of the soul sticking around after it's long dead, Addison still finds comfort in the notion that maybe, just maybe he can see her or feel her or keep better track of her up here then he would (provided the entire scenario was logical) on the beach. "It's different for me." She whispers, eyes beginning to fill with overwhelmed tears. Not from sadness, just from the mere magnitude of the discussion.

"We both lost our best friend." Mark retorts dejectedly.

"No," she shakes her head, "I lost him a long time ago...and I'm okay with it now. It's not like that for me."

"I'm not okay." Mark sighs. He would rather be yelling about the twins and pretending Derek is too busy for them both than be having this conversation, on the verge of some very ragged tears. He lost more than a best friend and admitting that could quite possibly send him right back to those first few weeks where being sober was an unfortunate side effect of not having a liquor store close by.

"I know."

"You are not okay." Mark adds thoughtlessly when she gropes around for the handle and sniffles.

"Yeah." It's a proven fact.

"I can't stay here. I have to...not be here..."

"You run," Addison nods noting the many, many similarities in between him and her ex-everything, "it's your thing." Out of the three she was always the only one ever willing to stick it out and fight, that was of course, until Mark fell in love with her. The teetering act of a person who runs and fights at random times is exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. She just wants him to pick once and for all. Though, in all fairness, the argument could also be applied to her as of late.

He grunts something incoherently and starts for the door. Mostly convinced that she knows nothing about him, as where he feels he's read the book on _Addison_ a million times, she hit the nail on the head and he sees nothing else to do but to escape. To where he has no idea. Maybe Joe's.

**_--_**

She's spent the last few days in an awkward and yet understandable silence with Mark. To be more exact an almost silence. The non-discussion about agreeing to speak of only good things, which really limited the conversations, happened when she drug him home from the bar three days ago and tucked him into bed with a glass of water and a bottle of scotch on the nightstand. She was letting him choose the ending. For three days they talked about her patients, the ones he doesn't care about and the little hospital gossip Addison had heard. They, namely Mark, discussed the many reasons why the Yankees are going to be so much better this year with a new manager, why traffic is so bad in the afternoons but not in the mornings, why the fucking sky is blue and everything else in between. No talk about babies, California, moving, Derek, Naomi, Sam, Elianna, Pierce, Kennedy, death, Christmas, New Years, upcoming important anniversaries, new jobs, old jobs...the list grew with each passing moment.

It's all sitting just under the surface of the water, waiting to bubble- waiting for the explosion and subsequent evaporation but it never comes. In nearly four days it doesn't happen. Mark still tries to snuggle when he sleeps, still kisses the top of her head and toys with her flame colored locks when no one is looking, and he is back to drinking more frequently than she'd like which leads to continual attempts to get in her pants no matter how many times she has to tell him that they need to reach a decision together before anything with a zipper or drawstring is going to be removed from her body. And she still sleeps in ten minute bursts, denies having nightmares of any form, declines food that could be in any consideration excessive to her diet, and in general pretends to be the healthiest, most well balanced recently grieving, slightly overpaid, significantly overworked - by her choice doctor - that the great state of Washington has ever seen.

Which is why she's here. Or why she seems to believe she is sitting at the edge of Derek's grave clutching new flowers to replace the old ones that haven't even been given the opportunity to die yet. If ever there was a place that was supposed to conjure up feelings, emotions and possible solutions a cemetery would be it but she's got nothing. No tears as her eyes scan over his name for the hundredth time, no muted screams when she plucks the red petals from their place and sets down the new white ones, and no ideas on what he would do in this situation. She can't get there so she sits, legs folded and tucked under, arms crossed waiting for the revelations, brain trying to reel in something worthwhile from the experience.

After twenty minutes she catches anger. Anger because if he was still alive and being an asshole she'd know exactly what to do and what to say and how to handle every stupid nit picky contractual agreement that stated how many times he got to see his kids a year. She'd remind him over and over that Mark was the answer and Mark would feel like the answer and they wouldn't care what the world thought because they'd be happy but instead Derek's dead and it's calm and she just can't make up her mind. The thing is it was supposed to be so easy without him around. There would be no one reminding her about the past, about how her "new" relationship got its start or about Mark's lingering indiscretions with many women in many states and how she's a vindictive, manipulative sociopath. He was supposed to be the antagonist in her story.

Meredith's presence startles her into an undeniable jump and she whispers a low, "Sorry."

"I can come back." The younger woman replies, her eyes already glassy from the trudge uphill.

"No." Addison pats the moist grass, "Sit."

"I just came to drop off..." Meredith shrugs and pulls the new fly fishing lures out of her purse. She can't recall why she purposefully drove to the little store Derek used to love and she doesn't know why she bought the little wisps that are supposed to resemble bumblebees and ants but she did and now she's here and it's weird and there's no good way out. She takes the clear waterproof case out and carefully places it on a section she has reserved for the stuff she brings. She takes the upper right hand corner. No one ever moves his stuff if it's there.

"Yeah." Addison points to the flowers and gets lost for a second in the rolling hills of cement rises and little angels with broken wings. "He was happy with you." She nods after a second, giving herself the affirmation and validation to move forward with rambling. "I just...wish I wouldn't have tortured us all...he should have been happy more."

Meredith blushes in the light drizzle and mumbles back as the older woman continues. It's hard to see her. Hard to watch as Derek's kids, the children she thinks should be theirs, continue to grow but Addison laid her claim first and there is no undoing those eleven years.

"He never felt that way about me...not like you...we weren't great together. It wasn't right." Addison reflexively brushes her cheeks and finds them only curtained with rain. "He was happy with you, you made him happy Meredith."

"You make Mark happy." Meredith offers unstably searching for something to give her. Something that will hopefully mean what that just did to her because Derek never said he was happy and all they did was fight but the redhead knew him and really it's almost as good as hearing it straight from the horse's mouth.

"He's better off without me." Addison acknowledges. Then again she's the type to think the entire planet would be better off without her minus laboring mothers and suffering infants.

Meredith shakes her head. In this instant the tables flip and finally she has one up on the woman who effectively ruined her life. She knows what Addison doesn't know, what Mark would be ashamed to admit- that he is a fucking wreck with her but he's borderline institutional without her now. Unfortunately, there's no way to say it aloud so she resorts to, "He's a good one."

"Yeah." Addison agrees and knows that they are probably the only two people in the world that believe it.

"He's not the kind of guy you leave."

And, Addison thinks, he's not the kind of guy that ever leaves you. Once you've been loved by someone like Mark it's never the same. Any of it. She stands and brushes the wrinkles out of her black slacks in vain, merely looking for something to do with her hands. "I need to-" she points toward the parking lot and bids Meredith a goodbye that only they could share with hearts that would hug if they were friends; hands that would squeeze shoulders reassuringly if the situation was any different.

It takes about forty seconds of the four minute walk back to car to know what she has to do. He needs this and she's never given him anything but a reason to doubt.

**_--_**

Addison tightens the belt a little more around her hips and wiggles trying to get comfortable as the plane begins to slowly taxi down the runway. Her free hand grips the armrest trying to be thankful that her other fingers are securely warmed by his. She feels gravity begin to tug and play with her sense of balance as she looks over at the man with roughly trimmed facial hair and shaggy mop that needs a decent cut. Grinning at his closed eyes and otherwise occupied ears, she pleads, _please don't hurt me this time_, in her head before trying to sleep for the duration of the flight.

Relinquished control is absolutely terrifying.

**_--_**

A/N: So first of all I am basically internetless at present which is horrifying but also means this hasn't been beta-ed. If you see something ridiculous please throw it in a comment and I'll do my best so no one else has to endure my stupidity. Second of all, we're going back! Back to where it all started...well kind of. So yes, new people to help Addison and really she needs a good friend and some support for Mark when things get unbearable. Plus, I think we are winding down, don't hold me to it but they are starting to heal and I can't really have all that much fun with sane and controlable characters, but I'll get them to the happy place first. Until next time-

* * *


	35. Perfect neglect in a field of statues

A/N: Hello all! I think, I hope you will be pleasantly surprised. This one is for Hannah, who reads every single paragraph I can throw at her and finds the support I always need. Plus she needs a pick me up, I think. Enjoy-

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
Perfect Neglect In a Field of Statues  
- Eluvium  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

There's something to be weary of in the air. Something to be suspicious of. This was her safe haven, her port in the storm and as they land ungracefully and rock from side to side on a newly night blanketed runway Addison knows she's inviting the devil to come play in her territory. The pilot announces that they have been moved to a new gate but that it isn't ready yet so they're going to taxi around earning him many grumbles of annoyance because that's the first thing most of the people who have been asleep are now hearing. Addison hasn't slept. Not even for a minute. She's felt every jump, every air bubble, every change of direction. Mark, on the other hand, has been asleep since the plane leveled in the air after takeoff. He's comfortably beginning to rouse and the smile is so wide on his face when he sees her next to him that she feels like a fool who just played into someone's hand.

Maybe this is what they wanted. A conspiracy. To get her back and ultimately control every little thing in her life. Micromanage until she doesn't even recognize that there is, was or ever should be a problem again. His thumb strokes the back of her hand and there's no denying that he still makes her a little school girlish. Her stomach bursts like fireworks and she's not sure if it's the fact that she hasn't gotten laid in nearly a week or if it has everything to do with him touching her like that but she's going to take it, whatever it is.

"Hey." He whispers.

"Hi." Her voice sounds far away, like she lost part of it over Oregon. She finds it fun how often she can't recognize herself. A tally was kept until the number got too high.

"What's going on?" He asks after a few minutes of listening to people bitch.

"New gate." Addison twists in her seat, trying to get her back to stretch out but failing miserably as the pain reignites and fizzles through her spine.

"I'm really happy we're here." Mark admits, wiping some sleep from his eyes and leaning in ever so slightly.

"Yeah, I see that."

"Thank you for coming back with me." He would've left her there. If she'd had said no, he would've had to walk away. After spending nearly two weeks in Seattle he knew there was no way in hell he'd ever be able to live there again, let alone work somewhere that has been painted with memories of his friend. It wasn't a choice for him. Sometimes it's good to get away, to take advantage of a fresh, shiny start.

"You're welcome."

Mark clams up, saving the rest for another time and place. When they finally get to deboard, it takes a whole heaping amount of patience to wait for the luggage conveyor to groan to life. Mark stands near the end of the line, crowded by too many people, and glances behind his shoulder at Addison sitting in am uncomfortable plastic chair. Her hands are at her sides, one toying with the strap of her black purse and though there is no indication he thinks that she is maybe more okay with sharing her body now.

There's no real new changes to note in her demeanor but he can tell she is trying. Not necessarily to be more involved but to be more proactive with eating properly and attempting to sleep and not end up in a puddle of stressful tears every other day. In truth being what he envisioned Addison would when pregnant, that is if he sat down and thought about it which he frequently refrained from doing before. The only issue is she still won't engage in anything having to do with them and Mark, having been through too many Shepherd sister births and pregnancies knows that it's not normal but he's got no ideas on how to get her to connect. That's all on her right now. And maybe the crew at Oceanside. Surely they must have some brilliant quick fixes that he's missed.

He plucks his black suitcase off the line and waits for the emerald green color he has come to know all too well to come tumbling out. When it doesn't and they spend thirty-seven hundred hours in lost baggage filling out forms he's surprised to see that Addison couldn't care less. She doesn't pound the tip of her black four inch heel into the ground impatiently and she doesn't give off the little huffs of air that signal distress. Mark grabs the handle of his bag with one arm and loops his other around her back urging her out into the pollution covered city lights. "So...I asked Pete to pick us up."

Addison looks around hesitantly, certain that if Pete were here she would have seen him. "Ok."

"He should be out in the car."

"My car?" Addison questions realizing that she, among the three, is the only one with a vehicle that seats more than two at a time.

"Yeah, I had Sam give him the keys. Was that alright?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Hey!" A familiar voice shouts behind them. Mark spins around mid step to find Pete huffing and puffing like he just took on a 50k. Conversely, Addison freezes and closes her eyes for ten seconds because when she turns back she'll have to be happy. The fake happy. The, "Oh my god, I'm so happy to see you!" happy and the whole thing sounds really unpleasing. Mostly, she wonders if he'll be able to see right through the charade- if anyone will because it's not like she can mope about now. In Seattle- maybe, yes, just a little, when she wasn't working. It was expected there. Here? Not so much.

"I've been looking everywhere for you guys. I was late and then you weren't anywhere in baggage claim..." Pete drags on looking at Addison's lightweight jacket before dragging Mark into an awkward man hug complete with abrupt patting of the back, minimal touching and a strong handshake to mix it up. "Addison?"

Her eyes glued shut she waits just a millisecond too long again and she can hear Pete asking Mark what's wrong. Oh how she just wants to go back to Seattle. It's different there. They don't know happy Addison. It would probably scare them. She smiles first, adjusting to the way it feels across her cheeks and then turns around slowly to face the man who used to think he wanted to date her- granted, he didn't understand her particular brand of crazy at the time. "Hi."

Pete reaches out for her hands and pulls them away from her sides and into the air before carrying on into a full blown embrace, the likes of which Addison was not expecting, especially from him. "You look...really good." Pete stammers, feeling his cheeks begin to glow. "So, I parked somewhere out there. It's getting late. I should probably get you guys home."

Addison doesn't argue with the fact that since it's her vehicle she should be driving him home and merely picks up her heeled feet and traipses along behind both men as they find something common and comfortable to discuss. She hears them yammer on and on about sports and a few interesting cases while they load up the car and Pete insists on driving, Addison thankfully hopping into the backseat before anyone can object. She spends most of the car ride in self imposed silence, afraid that the exhaustion will cause her to say something out of line (something she never really cared to censor before). Catching a few wayward glances in the review mirror from her "friend" she grins and settles on watching the ever present traffic.

She's anything but joyous to be returning and everything but careless to let everyone know that little detail.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison feels her throat seal off as they approach her already dimly lit ocean front house. Forty seconds later her fear is confirmed.

"Surprise." Pete mutters under his breath to Mark, "Naomi wanted to...well, you know." He takes a hand off the steering wheel to indicate what his words cannot.

"Great-"

"Addison." Mark warns before she can get out of hand. He's just got intuition about her levels of bitchiness lately and for the most part he is right on. It's not something he'll admit to understanding out loud though.

"Sorry, I'm just tired. It's nice." She corrects herself. She has a feeling she'll be doing this a lot in the coming days.

"I'm sure no one will stick around for very long. We all work tomorrow so...yeah." Pete offers gently, taking a spot at the end of the drive, careful not to block anyone in so the car won't have to be moved.

She takes her time drifting towards the front door of her own home. Never has returning been so awkward. They say it's hard to go back but sometimes the difficulty is severely underrated and without the wonderful option of intoxication (that surely everyone else is partaking in) the entire experience is going to be that much more trying.

Sometimes she wishes she wasn't pregnant so that consumption would be possible. Sometimes like everyday and then she is consumed by guilt. For the most part she just wishes it all would have turned out differently. She lets both Pete and Mark enter first, giving the latter a short nod of the head to let him know she's alright and just needs a moment out in the salty breeze. The warm glow on the front porch does nothing to deter the hesitance and after about thirty seconds she gives up, takes a deep breath and dives in head first.

Her fingers push the still open door back a little to receive no grandiose welcome. She kicks off her shoes, mindful to keep them out of the way and then plods down the short entryway to her old friends secretly wishing she could just head up the white banistered stairs and crawl into her bed and no one would bother to notice. Violet spots her first, gives the once over, a small smile and then takes a long pull of the concoction she is holding. Once that is through she heads to the kitchen where a delicious smell has caught her floundering attention. Naomi has her wrapped in the world's tightest bear-hug before she can even greet the rest of the people hanging out on the wooden floor. "I've missed you." Naomi says softly and runs a few fingers through her friend's hair on their way to disconnect.

"Missed you too."

"You're starting to fill out." Naomi teases, rubbing the stomach in front of her and not noticing the tension emanating from the body she touches.

"Sore subject." Mark nearly shouts but then is redirected by Sam out onto the back deck so as to give the women their space for girl talks.

"So?" Sam questions, clicking the glass paneled door shut and trying to compete with the roar of the ocean a few yards away.

"She's...I don't know....the same...better maybe." Mark scuffs his shoes along the planking.

"How are you?"

"Fine." Mark answers without thinking. It's become that simple these days.

"We...haven't talked about it but I'm assuming she wants to work."

"I'd prefer if she didn't." Mark nearly interrupts and finds a sand covered chair to wipe off and slide into.

"Well, we will all talk about it tomorrow morning in the meeting, yeah?" Sam pulls up a chair next to him and offers the extra bottle of near warm beer in his free hand.

"It gets better now." Mark says to himself and the growling, churning waves. His eyes don't connect with Sam and his ears don't hear any sentiments of reassurance or sympathy because none are whispered. They both know it was rhetorical and not up for discussion. If it was they wouldn't be out here.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I'm not saying that I don't enjoy their company Cooper," Violet swings her chair around and looks at him, their secret early meeting in process without Mark or Addison who are coming in at eight-thirty, "I'm merely pointing out that there was a reason we took a vote. There was a reason to vote."

"You're just jealous." Cooper dismisses and shoots her a celebratory smirk.

"I'm not jealous of them and whatever they have. I don't want it affecting my work place again."

"People die." Pete grimly nods and dives back into the chart in front of him.

"Yeah, Violet, have some sympathy." Cooper scoffs as both Naomi and Sam finally join them.

"I have sympathy!" She shouts and then looks around, "I have sympathy for real people Cooper, unlike you and your internet skanks."

"Ok enough," Sam begins, "Naomi and I spoke already and if she's up for it we think think it would be a good idea to invite Addison back."

Violet's hand shoots up into the air and Sam dismisses her, "We'll get to the discussion, just hear us out for a minute."

"Fine." Violet huffs and slinks back further into her chair, daring to click her pen in a most annoying fashion.

"It wouldn't be full time we don't think and were not even sure this is what she wants. But more importantly, Addison is very skilled doctor. We need her around here and we should be honored that she's back so I don't want to hear any whining. She's in. Deal with it." Sam pushes his notepad forward, "Now are there any legitimate arguments that should be addressed or can we move on with our day?"

"The no consorting rule." Violet points out and Naomi blushes inadvertently.

Sam clears his throat, "What about it?"

"Well it's kind of hard to keep with a couple wandering the halls."

"We're not a couple Violet," Naomi clarifies, "We're not anything...right now."

"I think she was talking about Mark and Addison." Cooper pipes up and then dives back into his work.

"Right." Naomi admits, "No one took the rule serious anyway and we all know that it was for Pete-"

"I didn't do anything." He reminds them.

"Yeah we know." Sam laughs softly.

"Is she safe to be practicing?" Violet voices this time, running down her mental checklist of why this is such a huge problem but ultimately knowing she has no say whatsoever.

"She's been working at a hospital in Seattle since she left without incident, I see no reason why working here-"

"It's different here. This is not surgery in a crazy busy place where you can live behind some disillusioned cloud and work your way through patients. We need each other. We rely on each other to be functioning."

"I'll talk to her, okay? Would that make you all feel better?" Naomi asks suddenly, fed up with the loopholes she's having to jump through for something so ridiculous in her mind.

"That's all I'm saying." Violet replies.

"You were saying a lot more than that." Cooper jumps in.

"Stop," Sam warns them, "We're not going to get like this again. There will be no feelings of threat or intimidation. We are professionals helping people together and the bottom line is that Addison completes our family, we need her as much as we need Naomi or Pete. So...we'll talk. We'll address things before they become issues this time."

"Fine." Violet sulks.

"Good. Anything else?" Sam looks around to the rest of his workers. He sees Violet's face light up again and he sighs, "What?"

"I was just...this doesn't need to be a daycare again. I mean I know you help watch Ellie a few times a week and that's fine but not everyday...and not the one that screams. We can't take that."

"Deal." Sam agrees, "Anyone else?" He looks around again, "Alright, see you in twenty minutes to do this all over again."

As the men jump out of the room Violet finds herself lingering behind hoping to catch a moment with Naomi. She shuffles and reshuffles her cases buying time, "I don't hate her."

"Kind of seems like you do." Naomi responds, trying not to engage herself too deeply.

"I'm trying to maintain what is best for all of us."

"You think I don't- you think Sam and I don't do that?" Naomi's hand finds her hip and she can't help but be defensive.

"I think you're too close to the situation to have perspective and if I was you I wouldn't have any either. I get it Naomi but it shouldn't come at everyone's expense." She watches her boss glower over her, waiting to snap out and bite feverishly, "I'm sure she's a wonderful person and an excellent doctor but we don't know her- we haven't been given the opportunity to see that." She pauses for a second, "I don't hate her."

"But you don't like her."

"All she's done is make me jump through hoops and bully me around for my professional skills."

Naomi inhales long and deep, "It's been difficult and you don't know. You don't know what she's been through-"

"It shouldn't be coming to work with her-"

"She's a good person Violet."

"I know." Violet nods, her curls bouncing ever so slightly. She's a fighter. She fights for what's right and she's not convinced that Addison belongs in that category yet; she's not certain that she's anything worthy to be fighting for instead of against.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Nervous?" Mark asks on their elevator ride upstairs.

"No, anxious. Not nervous." Addison replies, her heels swiveling against the ground disproving her statement.

"You don't have to do this."

"And what? Sit at home for the next four or so months doing nothing?"

Mark grins, "Well we'd do things-"

"You work."

"When I'm off." He reaches out for her hand but before he can get a tight grip the elevator doors have rang out and she is two steps ahead of him. They didn't get a good conversation in last night. Hell, they barely had time to agree to doing this before they passed out. None of that matters today.

Today is a good day because today is the day Addison comes back. Back to a place where she can take it slow and relax while still feeling accomplished.

"Morning." Mark greets slipping in behind Addison and takes his habitual seat two down from her.

"Morning." Pete pretends to be interested in his notebook but his voice carries warmly through the conference room just the same.

"So, the only order of business left...." Sam trails off looking at Addison, "What do you say? Give us another go?"

"I have a few conditions." Addison says instantly, having spent nearly the entire duration of the plane ride last night thinking. Thinking about anything that would keep her mind off the twins and off Pierce and that looming catastrophe.

"Ok." Naomi smiles, urging her to go ahead and speak in front of the group. They are after all a well oiled machine, everyone may as well listen up.

"Condition one- I would like my time split with St. Ambrose. I'm a surgeon first and I feel it would beneficial for both myself and the you all to at least maintain that half-time. Condition two- I take maternity leave when I say, or when I agree upon it with my own doctor. Condition three- I will not be working limited hours. I'm in perfect health and I don't see any reason why I can't devote myself to my patients and my practice."

"That's it?" Sam asks when she quiets down, catching a glimpse of how distraught Mark has grown with her demands, especially in light of last night's minor discussion.

"Yes. That's it." Addison smiles, looking around at her coworkers. For the most part they seem bored and unimpressed per the usual morning meeting routine. She ignores Mark. It's for the best.

"I don't think-"

"Your original agreement with us stands," Naomi cuts in on Mark suddenly, "You wanted to work here with us doing what we do not half and half."

"Naomi I don't think it's really that big of an issue. It would bring in more revenue, more new patients-"

"More patients for Addison. We are co-op medicine Sam, none of those women would be referred to us. It defeats the entire purpose. That is not what we are. We are all inclusive. Surgery doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for a psych consult or a-"

"It could help Cooper. Maybe even Pete. Not every one of our patients bounces off of all of us, you know that Naomi."

Addison watches them brawl, unsure if she chose the right time to proceed with her needs and wants. "It's non-negotiable. I'm sorry but I already spoke to Charlotte King-"

"You what!" Naomi bursts.

"She's willing to take me, no objections."

"I can't believe that you would go behind our backs after everything we have done for you-" Naomi launches but Violet sensing the rising tension takes an opportunity to cut her off.

"Mark does it."

"Mark's in plastics Violet. It's commonplace to do less invasive procedures in an office setting and save the big stuff for a hospital or other facility." Cooper mumbles and Mark just nods in response. He could work out by a dumpster for all he cares because his master plan has been shot to hell. With Addison missing and running around the hospital there is no way he will be able to keep a good enough eye on her.

"I don't think it's a big deal. If it's good for Addison, it's good for us. Isn't that what you always say Naomi?"

"Yes but this is entirely different."

"It's not." Pete finally voices, "She'd still be here some of the time for normal births and appointments with her own patients could be scheduled at a more convenient time."

"And what happens when you get a page or when you need to be on call. What then Addison? If you have to choose between us-"

"The hospital Naomi. That's what I'd pick because chances are if I'm getting paged from there it's something serious as where here I have back up. I have you and Dell and even Pete if I need him."

"I can help." Pete fills in proudly.

"Great, just great." Naomi mumbles to herself as Sam leans over to talk more privately. Addison can hear a few words and doesn't doubt that Cooper can hear every single sentence but when they pull back Naomi looks less like a tiger ready to pounce and more like the friend she has come to know. Sam, Addison decides, is still very good at bringing her down a level. "Fine, deal."

"Thank you." Addison says softly, hoping that everyone will be able to see just how much she means it.

"And we're done." Sam announces and runs out freely, everyone close on his tail except Mark, Addison and Naomi who he knows are all waiting to blow up at each other.

"What was that!" Naomi demands as soon as the door clicks closed.

"Yeah." Is all Mark can get out by way of a whining protest.

"I...I had to convince people to let you come back like this-"

"Well then maybe I shouldn't be here then." Addison retorts, "I did you a favor coming down here. And in light of recent events I've come to understand that there's this part of me that I can't get rid of and that I don't want to forget about anymore. It's not fair but that's life."

"Fine. Do whatever you want, you always do." Naomi dashes from the room, looking for solace in Sam or anyone else who is willing to listen to her complain and eventually cry about how she has been betrayed.

"What the fuck Addison?" Mark asks, taking a seat as she stands fiddling with the straps on her purse.

"I thought you would get it. Out of everyone, I thought-"

"Oh, I get it."

"Then what do you want Mark?" Addison huffs and then gives up and takes the seat next to him.

He hangs his head stupidly, knowing he should have realized that she was going to do something completely off the wall and uncalled for, "I just wanted you to come back and take it easy."

"And you were going to use this office and then people in it to make sure I did that?" Addison ventures.

"Kind of."

"Well consider your master plan compromised. Deal accordingly." She stands again, done with the conversation, satisfied that she got out of him what she wanted. When things go awry, when things get blown wide open she prefer that it happen under her control and watchful eye.

"You really want to work with Charlotte King?" Mark asks distastefully. He hasn't had a good experience with the woman yet.

"She likes me."

"You haven't called her yet have you?" Mark asks as he follows her out of the room.

"Not yet." Addison confirms. It's only a matter of time. There's no way someone will refuse her and her credentials that she essentially lost her life for.

"You are such a filthy liar." He grins and kisses her temple as they wait for the elevator once again, choosing not to stick around and mingle. "I should be proud."

"But instead-"

"You know I'm upset but maybe you're right. Maybe this will be good for you...or something." He needs to find the upside, the bright side of the shit she just pulled.

"I'm always right." She reminds him, fingers finding the right button on the panel.

"I just want you to be safe Addison. I want them safe." Mark says more seriously once they are enclosed alone.

"I know." She replies refusing to comply. It's safer to just leave it at that then agree and have it held against her when she inevitably screws up.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I was thinking I could do Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and half days on Saturdays at Oceanside and Tuesdays, Thursdays, one Sunday a month, and the other half of Saturdays here, with you. And a few on call shifts if necessary."

"That's a lot." Charlotte rolls her tongue around her mouth. This has got to be a joke. An early April Fools joke. Those kooks at Oceanside are really getting on her nerves.

"I can handle it."

"I don't doubt that." The Chief of Staff returns, "I just want to make sure you're in this."

"I am." Addison smiles.

"And-"

"I'm willing to do most anything Charlotte." Addison states seriously, hoping the urgency of the statement will transcend the boss/worker boundary.

"Okay then." Charlotte routs around in her drawer for a pen before pausing, "Sam and Naomi know about this?"

"They do."

"I bet they aren't very happy with you." She chuckles.

"That doesn't really bother me." Addison says assuredly and hands Charlotte a spare pen from her purse.

"Right. Well, I'll have a contract drawn up for liability purposes and I'll give Sevelechek a call and let him know you are on your way up. Human Resources is on the first floor and they'll have all your other paperwork and get you set up with real privileges."

"Thank you."

"No, thank you." Charlotte replies, certain that her presence is going to bolster her hospital up in the rankings. "I look forward to observing your work Dr. Montgomery again. Try not to kill any patients this time, okay?"

"Dr. King." Addison nods and disappears to go get her new life set up, choosing not to refute the fact that last time she operated here someone's life was lost and then she lost her own a few hours later.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Approximately a week into the new routine Mark finds Addison slumped against the counter in the practice's break room, eyes half open, half closed. "You are doing too much."

"I'm fine."

"You are asleep."

"Clearly." Addison retorts angrily. She marches out of the room without the peanut butter she was in there searching for and heads back to her desk to kill a few minutes before her next patient shows up.

"She looks like hell." Naomi notes, joining Mark and searching for a coffee cup.

"I know."

"You talk to her about it?"

"Tried. She said she is just trying to get in line with the new schedule and changing offices every day." Mark slouches in his chair, resting his head against the table top. "I thought we'd be better down here."

"That's what you get for thinking with Addison." Naomi tells him, the bitterness evident. She hasn't spoken to her best-friend all week, since her return. She sees her running the halls and in the morning meeting every other day but for the most part their conversations have been _hellos_, _goodbyes_ and _leave me alones_.

"I guess," Mark pauses, "Could you talk to her? She doesn't listen to me."

"You think she listens to me?" Naomi challenges, taking a seat across from him.

"She used to."

"Exactly," Naomi sighs, "Addison is different. Maybe...maybe she doesn't talk to me anymore."

Mark growls at the girl-like twist their conversation is taking. He did not sign up for this. "She doesn't...I don't...I can't," He stops and takes a deep breath, "She wants nothing to do with the twins and I can't help her with that. She won't let me. I need you to do...something, anything."

"I'm not sure if you noticed Mark but she doesn't really appreciate anyone telling her what to do lately, least of all me and you." Naomi attempted the talk one more time a few days ago, this time taking the 'this isn't good for you or your unborn children' route and was basically met with a slammed door to the face.

"She's overcompensating." Violet voices, drifting into the room. "She doesn't want to be attacked so she's more than protected about the things she doesn't want to talk about. Give her time."

"All we do is give her time!" Mark shouts. He wants time. He wanted time. He's tired of being the one that stepped up. It was what had to be done, it was what they needed but that doesn't mean he doesn't resent the effort ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. "We came down here to work on things, to be better and this is worse. I haven't talked to her for longer than five minutes since we've been back. She's always with a patient, on her way to a patient or yammering on about a patient. She's obsessed."

"Addie always gets involved-"

"No," Mark corrects, "This is not involved. This is...a fucking shield of pregnant women. She answered a page at three in the morning yesterday. I don't- I can't, I won't be the only one trying here. I need all of you people who say you care about her to actually care. It can't just be me. She doesn't trust me and she doesn't believe a damn thing I say so it needs to be you."

"Tell us how you really feel." Violet snickers and stops when they both glare at her, "Sorry."

"This is serious." Mark tells them, "We need an intervention."

"Whoa now, I don't think that that is going to accomplish-"

"No, Violet maybe he has a point." Naomi states, "We could do it at the house when she gets off. Maybe if we all tell her what she can't see or won't see then-"

"No. This is..." Violet begins, "You don't know what you're doing. She's defensive and hurt not to mention hormonal and this is not the right way to go about helping her. Ambushing someone who is as emotionally unstable as Addison is will only cause more problems."

"Well then Dr. Phil, what are we supposed to do?" Mark questions.

"She's going to see this as a group onslaught. She will lash out and it will have consequences that you do not want," Violet shrugs, "I say leave her alone for a while longer. Let her tire herself out. And be there when she needs you, offer to help. Don't demand it."

"She will never admit to being tired Vi and she's hurting more than herself in this." Naomi murmurs.

"I bet if Addison could help herself she would. She doesn't know what she needs and getting together and telling her all the things she is doing wrong, which I guarantee she already recognizes, without a solution is going to be ten steps back." Violet shakes her head, "I'm not going to be a part of this and I urge you both not to be either."

She leaves them both more frustrated and confused then they were when they started.

"So seven work for you?" Naomi asks after a few minutes.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison, can you come down here for a minute?" Mark shouts from the bottom of the stairs. All he has is himself, Naomi and Sam who was basically threatened by Naomi to be present. Pete said _hell_ no and Cooper sided with his almost girlfriend opting not to piss her off.

"Busy." She calls out, rolling through another stack of the papers scattered across the bed.

"It'll just take a minute Addison, please." Mark hears the shuffling of feet upstairs and grins when she emerges, hair down, face free of its usual design and body adorned with tiny black shorts and blue tank top that does nothing but cling tightly to her body. She's beautiful and he hasn't even had the chance to say it since they've been back. He grabs her hand, surprising her, and leads her into the living room

"Hey Nae, Sam." Addison sits when Mark points at a chair, knowing already that this is not going to be a fun visit. She crosses her legs Indian style, folding her bare feet under to keep them warm. They return her hello graciously and then the room falls suffocatingly silent. "So...someone just yell or something so we can get this over with."

"We don't want to yell." Sam says instantly, jumping in for all of them. It was decided that if Addison got out of hand he'd be the go between, the neutralizer, because they have the best long standing relationship out of everyone in the room. God, he hates conflict.

"We just want to talk to you...about you." Naomi jumps in.

"I'm fine." Addison snaps.

"We know." Mark grumbles and settles into the couch.

"Mark told us about the twins-"

"You-" Addison cuts Naomi off, "That wasn't any of your business. They are not any of your business!"

"Yeah, that's the problem." Mark starts, "They're yours and yours only and I want to help you. And I've said it and said it and said it so many times that you'd have to be deaf to have not heard me by now. I'm doing this because I love you, because I want this to get better, for us to be better and they are a part of the us problem- not just you."

"I spoke with Charlotte." Naomi begins again, watching her friend's face harden and glare, "And we agreed that you should absolutely keep working there. She said you've done amazing work and you're a wonderful addition to the staff and she would love to keep you on, even if you cut back your hours."

"You didn't." Addison gulps. No, no, no this is not happening.

"I didn't tell her to do anything, that's your call." Naomi replies. "If you want us, we're here."

"We want to help you Addison." Sam calmly says, trying to pry Naomi off the edge she's been dangling on for weeks.

"Where were you in September? Where were you when it all started going wrong?"

Mark looks around thoroughly baffled because he damn sure was here, except those few times. "What?"

"Not you," Addison jerks her head around to look at him with a look that says they will definitely be fighting about this later, "You hid. No one wanted to help me then. You wanted me to take time off. Take time away from you. You were never here, you never offered to help then," she holds her hands out, "Why now?"

"We were here-" Naomi starts in, knowing she really has nothing. She did tell Addison to go home and take time off consistently but then, even now, she thinks it was for the best.

"No, you weren't so forgive me if I'm not overwhelmingly pleased that you have found it in your hearts to be concerned now because you see, the thing is, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for Mark here neither of you would be in my house right now."

Sam ducks his head and tries to hide under a spare pillow while Naomi holds her ground, "Mark invited us but we're here because we care about you...and you obviously do not care about yourself-"

"I'm done," Addison stands up, "You know you're way out."

Mark waits the obligatory three minutes after she is back upstairs before he expels the breath he was holding and speaks, "That was not how I envisioned that."

"She had a point." Sam ventures.

"Yeah." Naomi sighs and stands up, "So did Violet."

"Sorry man." Sam offers and heads toward the back door followed by Naomi so they can go enjoy the rest of their night.

Mark, as usual, is left to pick up the angry shattered pieces.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The need to speak only arose during their mornings, where one needed something the other was in the way of or wanted to let the other know that it was okay to go ahead and eat dinner without them because they were going to have a late night. It's not that Addison wasn't speaking to him, she was, just in stilted and forced phrases. If it wasn't of the utmost importance or directly involving her then she wasn't going to voice an opinion.

When he ran into her at the hospital, dressed down in her scrubs, and racing from one patient to another they were courteous and professional. A nod of the head, maybe a kiss on the cheek if he was lucky. And when they were at the practice she lived in her office, or in exam rooms. He knew that she wasn't just avoiding him, she was avoiding everyone but that didn't make it any easier to deal with, didn't make her any easier to manage.

Naomi and Sam haven't spoken of the event to him but he got an I told you so from Violet so he's pretty sure someone said something. He's back at square one. Trying to figure out where to go, what to say and how to act.

And wondering just why loving her is never enough, why it's never been enough.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

For ease and convenience Addison has kept quiet and for the most part it has been surprisingly nice. She's cordial with patients and gives one hundred and ten percent day in and day out. It's exhausting but that's also the perk of the deal, by the time she gets home she has just enough time for a shower and then she falls into bed waiting for it to start all over again.

The problem was that she was right. Again. And while she may love Mark, she doesn't love being controlled or watched over like a two year old. She hasn't figured out the kid thing yet, she just knows she doesn't want to dwell on it or talk about it because in her experience those things just lead to her screwing it all up again. This really is the best option in her world. She can deal with it one day at a time, one kick at a time, one back cramp at a time. And superseding the benefit of constantly being too tired to care one way or another is the fact that she doesn't have time to sit there and contemplate.

She spends her free time at the hospital re-rounding on patients and staring at the surgical board, even observing like an intern from time to time. Anything to keep her mind busy. And she uses her free time at the clinic thinking about the hospital. It's really the perfect blend of surgeon and doting physician.

Her patients are happy, her coworkers are kind of happy, and she doesn't have the few spare moments to conjure up an emotion that isn't fake.

Life is wonderful.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison sighs as she stumbles into her office at the hospital and picks up her phone. A few missed calls from Mark and one voicemail later she has learned that his new car somehow has a dead battery and she needs to swing by Oceanside on her way home to pick him up, and could she _please try and get off early so he doesn't have to sit there all night or walk home_. She swings wide into an empty parking place noting that Naomi's car is still here and grumbles something to herself about her taking him home because she is always, always at Sam's anyway.

"Mark?" Addison asks quietly walking into the dim practice. The overhead lights in the hall have been cut and only a few on the path serve to illuminate the massive open area. She hears a screeching, "Addie!" from behind and turns around just in time to be tackled by Ellie.

"Hey." She says softly, trying to disentangle the small girl from her bare legs. "Where's your dad?"

"Work," Ellie pouts and then looks up, "I stay with Auntie Nae."

Addison smiles despite herself. It's good to see her niece and to see that she is still alive and remarkably better for the wear than when she left her. Perhaps Pierce has done something right. "Have you seen Mark?"

"Yes." She nods vigorously, her lagging curls bouncing. She grabs her Aunt's hand and winds her through the maze of offices until they come upon the conference room where Mark is sitting, intently coloring inside the lines of one Scooby and Friends coloring book.

"Oh, hey, you're early." Mark looks up and drops the orange crayon.

"Not really." She shakes her head and lets out a little laugh. She's never in her life seen Mark coloring anything other than the palm of his hand with girls' phone numbers. "Nice picture."

"Thanks." He admits sheepishly.

"Maybe we can hang it on the refrigerator or something." She adds smartly.

"Aunt Addie, look." Ellie tugs on her Aunt's skirt trying to get her to recognize her own work.

"Very nice." Addison nods and watches as the child scrambles into Mark's lap. They look at ease and it is obvious that he isn't shocked by her being there. "Where's Pierce?"

"Couldn't tell you." Mark responds softly, even though he wants to yell about the bastard who never takes care of his kids from the rooftops. Today Ellie came in with underbrushed hair and dirty socks. He's positive that she dressed herself but probably had no clean laundry.

"Kennedy?"

"Naomi has her. She's a little sick so she's on the fussy side though you can't really tell the difference from her already sparkling personality."

"Oh," Addison pauses, "Well, I can come back and get you. Just call me? Or Naomi could bring you home- if she doesn't mind."

"Or you could join us." He mentions and sorts through the large box in front of him for the cerulean crayon Ellie needs for her ocean picture. He hasn't held Addison in too long and having the human contact two times a week has been nice, plus as Naomi so politely put it, they get to keep an eye on the kids and make sure no one does anything irrational. Anyone being Mark and irrational being something like punching in Pierce's face and stealing two kids he has no relation to.

Addison crinkles her nose but drops her purse onto the table anyway, slumping into an inviting chair. It molds to her back perfectly and if she wasn't trying to keep up the charade she'd merely lean her head back and take a much needed nap. "I don't color."

"Sure you do." Mark pushes the book forward, silently letting her choose what picture she wants but instead of looking through it she simply rips out the first one, Scooby, Shaggy and a ghost and picks up the black crayon. "Ok then. Now Ellie, we're going to have a coloring contest and whoever wins gets to stay the night with Aunt Addie ok?"

"Mark-" Addison instantaneously refutes, "I don't think that is a very good idea on a school night."

"It's okay. Daddy said." Ellie says quietly, working very seriously on her drawing. An original, and the family portrait to be isn't lost on Mark or Addison.

"We have to be here at eight tomorrow."

"We used to make it to work all the other times. Now color." He points to her page, now containing a black ghost and nothing else.

Ten minutes later Ellie announces that she is finished and that by way of playing fair they must stop too. Mark stands, gingerly placing her back down on the chair and excuses himself to go find Naomi and Cooper, the judges.

"It's not serious?" Mark asks, looking down at Kennedy, stuck in her carrier, crying to her heart's content.

"Nope. She'll make it."

"She had that thing a while back-"

"It's nothing like that Mark, just a touch of the flu. Her temperature is pretty low and she's a little stuffy but nothing that won't resolve itself in a few days." Cooper announces and pats Kennedy's stomach.

"Until then?" Mark wonders aloud, positive that he doesn't want to give this child back to her father knowing he won't care one way or another, whether because he just doesn't or because he can't not a factor at all.

Naomi slaps his back, "Ride it out."

"We need you." He says, carefully pulling the four month old and holding her squirming body to his frame. He hasn't seen her since Pierce dropped them off at his house because from his understanding, Ellie is the only one who comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to hang out with Naomi and whoever else is around for a few hours. His boss explained that she thought this was the best option and benefited everyone involved.

"For?" Naomi questions.

"Both of you, actually. We did a coloring contest."

Naomi can't help but laugh and smile at the person Mark is transforming into before her eyes. Like a caterpillar into a butterfly, she never knew he had such a knack for kids, though in all fairness no one really ever gave him the chance to feel one way or another.

He was labeled and has spent his entire adult life doing nothing to disprove the sticker. He had no reason to, until now.

"Alright, let's see what you got."

"What were the stakes?" Cooper asks as they walk back.

"Whoever wins gets to stay the night with Addie- Addison." He's not particularly fond of her nickname though he can be found using it affectionately from time to time. But when he speaks of her to other people, she's Addison.

"But you live with Addison." Naomi interrupts, "And clearly there is nothing in this for her- Oh, Mark, did you ask her about this?"

He shrugs, "She doesn't have to deal with it if she doesn't want to."

"You're using her." Naomi warns as they get closer and Cooper goes in without them, "And she will notice that eventually if you keep it up."

"Naomi, we haven't spoken outside of _pass the crackers_ in about a week. I need something to break up the monotony, and maybe she does too."

"And if she doesn't?" Naomi needs to know that this isn't going to end badly. She needs to know that those damn crackers aren't related to anything including habitual vomiting.

"I got this." Mark assures her and enters the room where Addison looks positively frightened by the possibility of having to care for two kids and Ellie looks beyond joyous when Cooper confers with Naomi and announces her the winner by a long shot.

"Can I stay up late?" Ellie asks as they all trudge back out to Addison's car. She knows now that what he needed was the room, and the booster seat that she has yet to take out of the backseat.

Planned. From the get go.

She clenches her jaw and remains silent, demanding that Mark field all the answers, appointing him to person in charge for the evening.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Two hours later, one dinner, two sets of baths, four sets of pajamas and one argument in between Mark and Ellie over which movie they were going to watch, Addison finally manages to get her into bed and leaves Mark to deal with Kennedy.

She walks to her room, kicks her slippers across the room, the sound they make completely unsatisfying, and then stalks to the bathroom to brush her teeth. At some point during the scrubbing Mark joins her and she leaves the room cutting the scheduled routine short. He finds her in bed, covers pulled up around her shoulders, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling.

"Don't." She objects as his mouth begins to open. "I can't today so save it."

"They were happy to see you."

"Mark," she warns, "I really cannot deal with this right now."

"Would it have killed you to talk to Ellie?" He flips over to face her and flops an arm around her ribs, careful to avoid her stomach, and securing the fact that she can't escape.

"I did."

"You said maybe seven whole sentences all night."

"I'm tired." She responds, eyes still fixated on the bumpy texture above.

"That's what you always say." He replies.

"Maybe it's always the truth."

"Then you should scale back some" He points out, happy to have her help prove his eternal point.

"Maybe you should shut up so I can sleep." She tells him, scooting away but not wildly objecting when he snuggles into her back and intertwines their legs under the light comforter. He stares down the walls that he knows are two shades of yellow and waits for her light breathing to come. When it doesn't, he peers over to see the tears he knows are dribbling out from the shortened rise and fall of her lungs. "Addison." When words fail to conjure up a conversation he tries using soothing strokes on her arm and soft kisses on the back of her neck.

"I'm a horrible Aunt and I'm going to be an equally horrible mother."

"No," Mark pipes up, knowing that someday this would happen, "No you aren't."

"Yes I am." She whimpers.

"No."

"Yes, because I haven't talked to her and I don't care and all I want to do right now is have sex."

"Oh," he smirks and disengages his legs from hers, "well we could do that, if you wanted. I wasn't sure after last time..."

"Really?" She sniffles and brushes her nose against her forearm.

"Sure."

"I need sex." She states, as if it is obvious, "And I know we aren't good and you hate me...and I hate me but I need sex and I can't find it in me to care about anything else right now."

"I don't see a problem with that." Mark says gently, lips beginning to trace over the bottom of her ear.

"You have to keep your hands-"

"I learned my lesson." He cuts her off, reaching for the tie on her pants and being extra careful to keep all movements in that area to a minimum. He lets her roll them over and control the pace and tempo, to his astonishment she keeps it slow and loving despite her desperate declaration a few moments earlier. He follows her lead until she can't take it anymore and then his hands find her hips and help her keep rocking until he reaches a satisfactory peak as well.

"Thank you." She whispers heavily, finding another spot in his arms.

"Happy to help." He smiles. "Addison, you are going to be a great mother."

"Not as good as you." She murmurs into the pillow before succumbing to sleep.

He's not entirely sure but the rapid beating of his heart is telling him that she just admitted he will be a better mother than her, which in his mind he changes to father, and falls fast asleep dreaming about the perfect little family with four kids and two adults that Ellie drew earlier. The piece of paper has now found a permanent space on her purple wall in the guest room that Addison hasn't even bothered to look in since they have been back. Not great, but good enough for him.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Despite being over tired and physically exerted, Addison wakes with an overwhelming urge to eat something at three in the morning and for once, gives in and wanders down to the kitchen to find a slice of cold cheese pizza from this evening's dinner that she hardly touched. She downs a glass of water and tosses the crust in the trash, intent on heading back up to bed but when she reaches the first door on the left she has to peek in.

She smiles as Kennedy fights for sleep and carefully walks out of the makeshift nursery to Ellie's room. Just to check, just to make sure everything is okay in butterfly land. But what she finds is that with the lights off and the expectations dropped all she can do is fight back against the same tears from earlier. She is a horrible Aunt and she will be a horrible mother and neither one of those things had anything to do with needing sex. They were all just sort of rolled into the same jumbled context at the time.

She stares at the soft nightlight across the room before giving in and sitting on the beige colored carpet. Her eyes take in the near empty bookshelf, the opened toy box in the corner, and the stocked dresser next to a shiny pair of tiny shoes. At her best she is going to be able to financially support her children but that's never the kind of parent she wanted to be and at this point in time she has no idea on how to fix that and zero inclination to admit it.

Motherhood is too scary to speak about in public without dealing with the subsequent judgment and she's losing time to hide that secret. Before, with Derek, when married to Derek, in the early years she figured if it happened, it happened and they would be marvelous together. In the later years she figured if it happened, it happened and somehow they would manage to stop hating each other and come together. Now, after Derek, without Derek she doesn't have a clue. All of her plans involving children, except for the ill-fated sperm donor idea, included him somehow. They included the life she had built and then destroyed. The life she wanted her kids to be a part of. Not this...new version of beach house and tan Ken doll and the pink(red) convertible stashed in the garage.

She watches the five year old snoring ten feet away and rakes her fingers through the threads of soft carpet. She feels nothing. A numbing agent took over her mind, body and soul months ago and the only emotion she can ever fully suffer though is pain. Regrettably, she feels no more of a connection to the children inside of her than the child in front of her and she knows enough to know that that is not right.

So she sits, playing with the floor, tracing patterns over he skin, waiting for something to happen. In the two hours she's alone it never does.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison?" Mark questions, dipping his head into Ellie's room, the early morning light showering them both with delicate, barely distinguishable features and pale, distorted colors.

She stands, refusing his helping hand and follows him downstairs. She slinks to the couch and picks up a spare blanket before curling into the corner and flicking on the five a.m. news. When he doesn't join her, after she's heard the coffee pot in the kitchen click on and begin to brew, she follows timidly. "I want help."

Mark tilts his head, seeing if she needs aide in opening a jar, but finds her empty handed and face full of worry. "Okay."

"Not every day is a good day...and not every good day is a perfect day."

"I know that." He tells her and takes a seat at the small table.

"I want to be better. I know I could be better but it seems to far out of reach...and I-I want help...from you."

He nods, watching her fidget and grow increasingly distraught, wishing he could just reach out and pluck her from her spot and place her in the safe area between his neck and shoulder that she loves. "Ok."

"I don't want Naomi...or Sam...or Violet, they don't care-"

"They do care Addison." He reminds her.

"No, and this...this is a you and me thing, ok? Just us."

"Yeah." He agrees. He's eager to get to the happy place because when they are there everything seems so much easier to deal with. He'd be more okay without his best friend if he had some sort of friend in her. There's comfort with her because she knew him, knew him how he did and he craves someone who can sympathize and empathize.

She runs a few fingers through her long hair. It needs to be cut. She can't even remember the last time she was at a salon. Terrified, she makes a few more silent rounds on the hard wood beneath her feet, "What-what do we do Mark? I don't know what to do anymore."

"I think," he clears his throat, mostly unsure himself because he's no guru at relationships, "we talk."

"Right. You start."

She hasn't looked at him yet so he dives in, "I would really like it if you would cut down your hours, at both places. And I need you to eat more-"

"I do-"

He interrupts, "How about I go and then you go?" He watches her head bob in approval, "And you need to eat more because that's what they need. We need to make an appointment with your doctor down here and get this sorted out to make sure. I need you to tell me when you want to talk about things like this instead of bottling it up and keeping it to yourself until you explode. I would like if we could continue seeing the girls, but that's an entirely different thing I need to discuss with you. And I need to know if I should sell my house, if we are staying here permanently."

"Ok." She says when he trails off.

"And I need you to let me love you. It's not just for you...I need it." He stammers, not finding a good way to explain the loneliness that he feels all the time. Loving Addison gives him something to do, something to focus on, a way to feel better about himself and when she shoots him down and shoves it in his face, the idea of becoming a raging alcoholic doesn't sound so bad. "Your turn."

Without hesitation, she feels herself bubbling, "I need you to stop pushing me. I need you to stop trying to protect me all the time. I need you to accept that I'm not who I was and I don't know if I can ever be her again because I don't feel like myself anymore. I need you to accept what I can give and understand that when I say I can't, I'm not kidding. I would like to not continue seeing the girls because they are not something I am comfortable with right now. I would appreciate it if you would stop making everyone gang up on me in the name of saving me from myself. And I need you to know that I am still hurting, and to realize that I know you are too, and that it's different for each of us and that...sometimes I-I can only handle myself and not you."

"That wasn't too bad." Mark voices, this time grabbing her stilled hand and directing her to his lap.

"And I will make an appointment on my lunch today...and I'll tell you."

"Good." He smiles, his head coming to a rest on top of hers as she relaxes.

"I really am trying now Mark." She sniffles against his white shirt, lapsing into the fear. What she wants to say is, 'please don't leave me because I suck at life.' She couldn't handle that.

"I know." He strokes her hair, feeling oddly rejuvenated. "I don't mean to push you."

"Yes you do."

"Ok, I do but it's only because-"

"I know," she says, "and I have been eating more."

"I noticed." He kisses the top of her head and dares to place a palm flat against her stomach, enjoying the little flutters that tap against his skin.

She draws in a long breath and prepares to clear their biggest hurdle, "I don't like being reminded that they are there," she pushes his lingering fingers down, "and if I knew back in September what I know now I'm pretty sure that this," she points to herself, "wouldn't be happening. It's better for me to pretend. I know it sounds messed up and it makes me a horrible person but I just can't. And I do care about them but I'm not okay with the idea of a them existing in a few months and I feel like I'm going to topple off the ledge I'm on if I start contemplating that...and I don't want to wind up in the hospital again. I feel like it's safer for us all if I don't think about it."

"We have a little while." He states after a few quiet moments, "Thank you for telling me that finally."

"I'm really bad at this." Addison indulges and can't help but think where her marriage could have been if only they sat down and did this once every five years. It's not wrong to wish for the dream she had planned out but it is wrong when she substitutes in Mark for Derek all the time. She should've known. She's been doing it for too long as it is anyway.

"We'll get the hang of it." Mark assures her and she's never certain how he can be so positive, how he can know without a doubt that this wacky, screwed up thing is what he wants. "I didn't break our sixty days bet. I was never going to tell you that...and I don't want to discuss it, I just need you to trust me again...or start...and I almost with Meredith but extenuating circumstances and I'm a drunken idiot sometimes...and I'm very sorry about that and...about New York." He really hopes that can cover the broad scope of the things he should be apologizing for.

She mulls over a response and finds nothing to share so she pushes back into his chest and winds her fingers through his praying that it is good enough for now. Forty seconds later she knows the perfect reply, "Sell your house."

He tilts her head up, places a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth and smiles. Somewhere, deep down, even in the weird adjustment times he knew that coming back to California was the right option.

The solution that would help them fix what they had torn apart, the things they never cared to try and fix before now. Whether out of necessity or want they are finally trying, this time together and on the same page. Surely, he thinks, they can get more accomplished this way. He holds her until the sun is high in the sky and pitiful screams upstairs convince them that Kennedy is not going to stay asleep any longer.

Then they rise, pour coffee, make cereal, dress kids and prepare to take it all on head first, hand in hand.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	36. As we complicate the end

A/N: I wish I could say this would end at 40 chapters but all I can really say is that it will end this year. Small goals. Disclaimer for the chapter: I'm no doctor and though I research (minimally) I in no way expect it to be 100% accurate. Enjoy-

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
We have more hurt inside  
Than we could ever feel_**

**_Multiply your worst mistake  
As we complicate the end  
- The Jealous Sound, "Above The Waves"  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Violet, do you have a minute?" Addison asks professionally, appearing nonchalant in front of Cooper and Pete while she tries to finish off her sandwich. Eating has not been kind to her lately.

Violet looks down at her schedule and then back up a little skittishly. "S-sure."

They twist back through the hall, after running into each other in the kitchen, and Violet chooses Addison's office to walk into, in case they need somewhere comfortable and nonthreatening. Really in case of if Addison found out some of the stuff Violet said about her coming back, not that she thinks Addison would start fights but still. "What's up?"

"I...there is no good way to ask this...so I'm just gonna say it," Addison sighs and lets her raised elbows fall against her desk.

"Be my guest."

"I was wondering-" she lowers her voice, "if maybe you knew someone I could talk to."

Violet looks behind them to make sure the door is shut. "A therapist?"

"No!" Addison pouts. "Yes. I think, I don't know. Maybe it could help." Something needs to help.

"I'm always available if you need to share-"

"No," Addison tells her. "This is...not sharing material. It's...do you know someone or not? I thought I'd ask you since you are in with the crowd but if you don't then..."

Violet watches Addison trail off squeamishly and then smiles easily. "His name is Jacob Atwater and he doesn't take new patients but if you tell him Violet Turner sent you it should be fine. He's very good. Very discreet. A little unconventional at times but good." She leaves off the part about how she used to see him years ago and still calls in an emergency session every now and again. "I'll get you his card."

Addison, though not looking up, can hear the shifting around beginning to happen. "Thank you."

Violet nods knowingly. For some reason the world seems to think therapy makes you inferior. Some things just can't be handled alone. And therapy is definitely not for the weak. "You're welcome."

"Violet!" Addison calls out, head securely resting in her sweating hands.

"I won't say a word," Violet returns, still retreating from her spot in the doorway.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Come in, come in." Jacob gestures toward his big blue chairs. "Sit, please."

"Oh, thanks." Addison runs a hand over the back of her skirt as she slowly descends and then primly folds her hands in her lap, ankles crossed.

"So...how is Violet?"

Addison bites her lip and looks out the window worriedly. This feels like a bad idea. "She's...good, I guess."

"And how are you?" Jacob settles into his seat and reaches for the pad of yellow paper on the table to his right.

"Fine." She pauses. "Listen Dr.-"

"Oh, no call me Jake. I'm not...I'm not into titles Addison. Just Jake is good."

"O-ok," she stammers and looks to the carpet for answers. "I think this was a mistake."

"Why do you say that?" he asks as she stands up hesitantly.

"I thought – I'm not ready." Addison nods to herself and reaches for her bag, which considering the state of her growing abdomen is slightly difficult and the blonde psychiatrist beats her to it by a long shot.

"How far along are you?"

"What?" Addison looks up from her purse, that both of their hands are still clasping.

He points to her stomach, "How far along are you?"

"Oh...um...about..." She mentally calculates for a second, "28 weeks."

"Almost to the home stretch. First child?"

"Yes," she answers immediately and doesn't correct the singular assumption.

"Nervous?" he baits, and watches as she backs toward the door.

"No...well, yes. A little. I mean everyone is right?" she rolls her eyes at herself and then sputters, "I-I'm just going to go now." With her training and years and years of experience there should be no reason for worry and yet, it's always there. A constant among the variables of change.

"You sure?" He watches her bob her head assuredly. "We can talk about whatever you want. The weather, baseball, unicorns, work...whatever you feel like. No pressure."

"No, thank you. I'm sorry this was a waste of your time. I thought – I was ready." She grins wobbly and reaches for the shiny, inviting knob.

"Well, feel free to give me a call when you are...ready, okay?" He lets her tiptoe out the door before adding, "Though, I should probably let you in on a little tip." Her ears perk up a bit, waiting for a secret. "You're never really going to be ready for this. Call it a gut feeling but I've seen your type before."

"My type?" she asks in a higher pitched voice than normal.

"Headstrong, better than therapy, obviously virgins to the whole process."

"I'm not better – I don't mean to insult what you do."

"Not a problem Addison," he shrugs. "It's not for everyone but I can help. I know you're thinking there's no way I can possibly be of any assistance when I know nothing...and you're not going to tell me much, that's a given, but I can help. I'm good at my job."

When she's had enough about her type (because she's been labeled since before the womb part of her life) she leaves with her head high and her shoulders heavy. She hasn't seen a therapist since she was eight and old enough to protest about it the audacity of it but she's certain it's got nothing to do with being better than the institutional umbrella under which the whole thing stands.

She's just not ready.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Where you been?" Mark greets, slipping a hand to her lower back and pulling open the glass contraption with his other. "Naomi said you had something at the hospital but Charlotte said she hasn't seen you name anywhere today."

"Are you stalking me?" Addison asks, marching herself to the front counter to check in for her appointment.

"No, just...making sure you're okay. I get to worry Addison." He tells her the last part softly, smiling, like they are sharing a coupley moment that makes all the women with screaming babies and huge stomachs that much more jealous. He likes the onlookers. He likes when people think they are normal.

Since their vow to talk more they've actually done less talking but it doesn't diminish the fact that he feels like they are still on the same page, albeit wandering a little from time to time, or skipping ahead a chapter. He doesn't mind it now that a lot of the laundry has been aired and he's trying to be patient. His house, which was embarrassingly easy to clean out and get ready, has been on the market for six days and he's amazingly had ten offers. He'd take any one of them but Addison said they should at least wait a week and try and make some money on the place. No sense in being stupid about something that doesn't hurt them to hang onto.

"I was...I had a thing which turned out to not be a thing, but can we just drop it?" she pleads, slipping into the cushioned chair and reaching for a magazine to flip through. Anything to distract her from the fact that this could/is about to be disastrous. Call it a gut feeling, literally.

"Sure." He grabs the smudged, glossy pages she wasn't reading and steals her fingers. "This is going to be okay. You look really good Addison, I'm proud."

Her grin turns into an awkward frown. "Thanks."

She doesn't look that good. Maybe he can simply tell that she is trying, rather halfheartedly, because going full throttle on anything these days it outright impossible. Or maybe he's merely being nice, which he does frequently now, something she finds more than annoying and keeps her mouth shut about. Perhaps she's the only one who thinks there is nothing to be that cheerful and excited about.

Maybe it's just her. Maybe it's all in her head.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison, you look great. I'm surprised, after having read what you had faxed over this morning, but everything is...close to normal, I think we are getting back on track." Her doctor smiles widely and looks about ready to give her a high five. She glances over at Mark who is up out of his seat and making his way over to the exam table.

"Really?" she squeaks, searching for honesty.

"They are still quite small given gestation time but you've come a long ways from where you were so I'm not too terribly concerned right now. However, I would like to start seeing you weekly. Make sure you are progressing and the babies are not falling behind. Ok?" Dr. Everly stoops to a chair on his left and begins scratching out notes.

Addison thinks it can't be right, granted she wasn't looking at the scans or studying umbilical cords and heart rates but still. "I'm okay?"

"Given the circumstances," the old man replies gently.

"Addison," Mark stutters for a second lost in a haze of 3-d images that were just on the screen in front of him, "this is good. Fantastic, even."

"I know," she assures him. "I just want to make absolutely certain that-"

"Is work stressful?" the doctor interjects.

"No."

"Is there something bothering you?" he presses.

"I'm good," Addison replies with a slight smile. "If they're good, I'm good."

"Mark, can you give us a second?" And after Mark gets the go ahead nod from Addison he steps out, staying close by the door, for fear that something may erupt between the parties like last time. God forbid she explode on another person trying to help her.

"Listen, Addison let's skip the speech and get to the point here," Dr. Everly finally decides, turning off machinery and grabbing a nearby seat.

"Are they-"

"They're fine," he pats her knee, "I'm worried about you. Is everything going okay? Anything I should know about? Any pain? Bleeding? Irregularities?"

"No," she shakes her head heartily. "Everything has been...fine...nothing out of the ordinary."

"Mark explained to me how...difficult things have been recently-"

"He what?" she gawks immediately, reminding herself never ever to take an important call while in an appointment.

"He was basically filling me in on some of the things that have happened and I want you to know that it's going to be alright. If you rest, relax, and keep on eating then I don't foresee any serious complications-"

"Filling you in..." she repeats in a trance. How much? Why? Where does he get off?

"I'm very sorry for your-"

"Don't!" she yells loudly. Gut reactions are not always pretty. "Just...please don't say that."

Everyone in the world is sorry. Even the ones who have no idea what it is like. She's still too bitter to appreciate the sentiments.

"Ok," he grins trying to change gears, "I want to see you every week from here on out and you should probably start thinking about taking leave from work-"

"No, work is fine," Addison begins, her hand wringing into carefully constricted knots. Without work she would go insane. Without that distraction, that goal to drive towards every day, life would be disastrous. "And I'll set up the appointments when I'm done. Are we done?"

"Sure," he agrees and pushes out of his seat and back up to the counter. "Addison, I know you think you're alone, but if you need anything...or have questions that you can't answer yourself...I'm here. I'm your doctor so you don't have to be, alright?"

"I understand," she tells him hopping down off the table and grabbing her purse before deftly removing herself from the room and bypassing not only Mark but also the receptionist in her fury.

Today is so not her day.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Ohhh...what did you do?" Sam asks Mark as they make their way down the practice's hall to the waiting area. "She is livid. I haven't seen her this upset since Derek...never mind."

"I didn't do anything," Mark says softly looking around the office, hoping the caged redhead is still in her office or with a patient.

"You did something," Sam nods knowingly.

"She's overreacting."

"You didn't tell her that, did you?" Sam asks apprehensively. This man clearly needs help.

"Maybe, but she...was flipping out and she tried to leave me in the middle of town."

"You did something." Sam is convinced. "Naomi know?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. She said they don't really talk."

"Maybe this can be the thing that brings them back together then," Mark mutters and points at Dell until he snaps too and forks over the file.

"You may as well tell me," Sam urges, picking up his own chart and fumbling through it.

"Why Addison is mad?" Dell pipes up.

"Yeah," Sam answers, Mark looking away.

"No one knows," Dell announces and flips back to the phone which now rings about seventy times a day thanks to the to new doctors. He constantly wonders why they never give out their direct numbers. Voicemail is not such a horrible thing. "She told me to keep you the hell away from her fucking office though."

"Dell!" Sam scolds instantly.

"Her words," Dell explains, his hands in the air innocently.

"Not good." Sam slaps Mark's back trying to remember the last time he heard Addison use that terminology without the help of a surgery high or alcohol low. "Not good at all."

"Thanks."

"It may be best to let it run its course. You know how she gets," Sam advises while searching the area for his next patient.

"Yeah." Mark knows what he did, but he also knows it needed to be done. It was a necessary thing, and no, not something she wanted. However angry, he feels safe in his decision to ease some of the difficulty without her permission. He will do everything in his power to keep the twins on schedule, even it means pissing off the carrier in the process.

"Poker, next Thursday. Bring your wallet cause Pete says he is on a mission. Oh! And before I forget Naomi mentioned something about a baby shower when she was picking up Maya this morning..."

"Sounds good," Mark nods. "You think Addison would be okay with me planning something like that and not telling her?"

Sam looks over his shoulder incredulously. It shouldn't even be asked, the leggy surgeon hates being surprised. Everyone knows that. "Hell no."

"Right."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"No," Naomi mumbles to Mark while brushing a finger under her nose to keep from sneezing for the fiftieth time. The scents and pollens and petals are killing her. "Hurry up."

"You could just tell me," Mark shoots back, enraged that he has to keep pointing to different flower arrangements. "Or you could've just let me call the order in and have the nice lady behind the counter do this."

"No," Naomi argues. "You screwed it up and you're going to correct it not..." she looks over for a name tag, "not Stacey."

"This one," Mark asserts judging the yellow buds heavily. It looks like Addison, whatever that means. He's more concerned with the fact that he can still recognize things she'd prefer. Some skills never leave you.

Naomi smiles, thankful that this can finally be over with. "Yes."

She watches him pay and struggle with the large bouquet until it's under his arm in a manageable manner. They burst out onto the busy sidewalk, in the bright light, both snagging dark sunglasses off their respective heads. "What did you do anyway?"

"Nothing that's worth what I just paid for this." He points at the flowers and then sighs, "I said some things that I maybe shouldn't have to her doctor."

"Like?" Naomi slings her purse over her shoulder and sets a path out for them, daring the passing crowd to interfere.

"About Derek...and Seattle...and the not eating thing. He needed to know."

"Be that as it may, you should have discussed it with Addison first."

"She wouldn't have allowed-"

"But she still would've known," Naomi interjects knowledgeably.

"I guess," Mark gives in. He squeezes the dewy plant a little tighter, secretly hoping she loves it, before stuffing it into the back of his car and throwing himself into the driver's seat.

"I don't know about a baby shower," Naomi begins, once securely inside, Mark swearing at the traffic and asshole drivers under his breath.

Mark nods. He's not so sure either. On one hand it needs to be done. Literally. The only have a few weeks left here and the reality of the situation is that there is a half-assed nursery that belongs to someone else and a purple room that would break his heart to repaint. Which only leaves the small room downstairs that he believes Addison wants to turn into an office. It's filled with half empty boxes and a shiny mahogany desk that hasn't been used since it sat in the brownstone. On the other hand, she doesn't like to talk about the twins, feel them, enjoy them, or hate them for making her sick, cranky, achy, and swollen. It's like a mine field, and so far all he's done is step on the red squares of death. "Maybe it will help."

"I don't need her any more mad at me. I hate fighting with her, it's exhausting Mark."

"We'll say I did it," he decides. He can take the fall because eventually she always comes back. The waves build and recede like the water outside their window. Even if they wipe away the foundation of the sandcastle, the sand is still there.

Naomi groans in her seat and squirms around. "We should ask-"

"And she'll say no, if she says anything at all."

"But at least she'll see it coming," Naomi urges, thoroughly convinced he's not getting the point or learning his lesson.

"So she can be prepared to run away? I want her to have this...even if she doesn't want it. In a few years she'll look back...and be thankful or something."

"Yeah, you got the 'or something' part right."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Come along," Violet demands, dragging Addison into her office by the arm. Once arrived, she watches the other woman shake her freed limb vigorously, trying to get the light ache worked out.

"What the-"

"Jacob said you canceled on him," Violet states pointedly, drifting to the couch and tugging down the blue blanket to snuggle with.

"I didn't," Addison replies defensively. "I was there...and..."

"And?" Violet shakes her head confused.

"And I couldn't," Addison laments, drowning herself into the soft fabric of the chair on her left. She lets her hands find the edge of the armrests and begins toying with the seam, waiting for it all to unravel. Isn't this how it goes?

"Couldn't what?"

"It's..." Addison begins wearily. "I don't even know how to say any of it out loud. How ridiculous is that?"

"Do you think it's ridiculous?" Violet asks carefully.

"It's all I think about...the...everything...and I can't find the words to use." Dead sister, dead baby daddy, dead love life, dead emotions. On and on and on. And yet, her head is too over used to think of anything to say about any one of the subjects. All she knows is pain and dark. There aren't preconceived sentences and paragraphs woven and available for her to spew forth.

"It's a lot to deal with on your own," Violet neutralizes.

"It really is," Addison agrees with a grin. "Thank you Violet. I know we aren't...friends but, thank you."

"Not a problem." She takes a calm moment before prodding. "Is there something you want to talk about? I'm good...with listening."

Addison sighs heavily. She has so much to say, so many ideas that need to find their way out into the world. She glances at the curly haired woman, cozied up on her couch, blissfully unaware of the problems sitting in front of her. Addison clears her throat and gives in to the one thing she can't solve on her own. The grief, that constant pain, it's almost like an old friend but this she isn't sure of. "I...aborted Mark's baby...and I'm afraid he's trying to make up for it now...and it...I don't want that for him or me."

Violet tries to remain devoid and unimpressed, "Why do you think that?"

"He has taken it into his own hands to command the rest of this pregnancy. When I eat, when I sleep, and I know he thinks he's helping but mostly I want to beat him over the head with my shoe," she rambles out so quickly it almost sounds like one word.

"Is it a bad thing, that he's helping so much?" Violet shrugs.

"No...yes...I don't know," she explains fluttering her hands into the air, "I...like that he wants to be there, even though it's awkward, but sometimes it's too much. This is a me thing...and I don't want him around it...which sounds, now, incredibly self-centered and ugly, but...it's the truth."

"You want him to back off?"

"Yes," Addison swallows. She wants everyone to back off and give her a moment to breathe. Give her a glimpse of whether or not she can do this and a second to process. Her timing has become impeccably slow, nearly at a standstill, and she needs a minute longer than the rest of the world.

"Do you always want to do things alone?"

"What?" Addison questions, being brought back again, against her will. "No...that's not what I meant."

"But you do want to do this alone?"

"It's mine to do!" she shouts back, standing hastily, the chair moving with her.

"Hmmm," Violet grins. "Alright."

"Alright? Alright!" And this is why she doesn't do therapy. Everything gets twisted. Everything that makes sense in her head sounds ludicrous in the smug office air.

"Yes, alright."

"Am I wrong to...want-"

"You want what you want Addison, me proving or disproving it won't change anything," Violet states, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. "I'm not your voice of reason."

"You think I should just accept it and be happy?"

"I'm not saying anything," Violet says softly, watching as Addison begins to pace the room.

"It's not that I'm not thankful, because I am. And it's nice to have him...around...it's just not the time...and I can't deal with all of that," she circles with her arms, "and...and all of this," she pauses mouth lost in thought, "I can't lose him."

"There's your answer."

"I hate this," Addison announces storming to the door, and not for the first time wishing that she was back up in Seattle living on Cristina Yang's couch, hiding under a book.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark tugs the vase a little closer to his chest, covering his face with the strongly scented flowers, and kicks open Addison's door with his shoe. He steps forward tentatively, and places the mess on her desk.

"Peace offering for a truce?" Addison questions sarcastically.

"Can't blame a guy for trying."

"I'm sorry Mark," she says first, before he can get his mouth open. "I...overreacted. And while I still wish you wouldn't have spoken to Dr. Everly without my consent, I'm almost a little relieved that he understands the entire situation."

"I'm sorry I didn't ask. I was sure you'd say no."

"I would've."

Mark looks down her floor with a grin. "Did we really just do that?"

"I think we did," she laughs out something that could be construed as a giggle.

"Not our first fight," Mark mentions.

"First one that counts," Addison corrects and stands up to take his fingers in her own for a celebratory kiss and embrace.

"Cake," Mark smirks before leaning in and capturing her lips. He relaxes when they meet, unhurried and boastful. He slips his tongue past her guard when she stumbles on her heels and tries to move back causing her to moan accidentally. When he's had his fill, and a little more, he removes his hands from trying to travel up under shirt because they seem to have a mind of their own, and brushes a fistful of hair off of her blushing cheeks. "Shall we commemorate with dinner?"

"That'd be nice," she nods, redness still stuck to her face, thoughts of pushing him down on her desk invading her brain.

"I'll let you pick this time." There's no telling what she'll want from one day to another anymore and though she'll go anywhere to appease him, he can tell when it's not what she really wanted. "One condition," he warns when her mouth parts in thought.

"What?"

"No more Chinese. I can't stomach another egg roll."

"Deal," she complies and rushes forward for another goodbye kiss. "We should fight more."

"Agree to disagree on that," Mark chuckles and then heads toward his next patient. "See you three in an hour."

And to think it was going so well until that mention.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison!" Mark pounds on the bathroom door with his fist before checking his watch again.

"Hold on," she curses, mascara wand unsteady in her oddly shaky hand. She got a plan. Operation keep Mark. She glances back at the well manicured reflection, proud of her skills, and straightens the silk hemline once more across the tip top of her thighs. It should do the trick.

"We're missing our reservation," he grumbles, shuffling to the bed and collapsing down, deeming the whole thing a lost cause.

"Shame," Addison says as she pulls the door back, "I was kind of thinking we could stay in tonight."

"What-" his mouth dries as he tries to finish the sentence, eyes resting on the shimmering black fabric as it dips across her chest. "That's..."

"You like?"

He nods slowly, coming to the terms with the idea of Addison seducing him, now of all times. "Yes," he says when he can formulate syllables again. He wants to dart his tongue out to taste, just a little. Allow his teeth to graze her shimmering skin, let his mouth leave a wet trail across the expanses of muscle.

"Good," she smiles weakly, "because I feel like an idiot.'

"Well, you don't look like an idiot," Mark says with ease, enjoying that her hormones are still somewhere in that crazy head.

"What do I look like?" She asks, already baited and moving forward toward the bed.

"Get over here and I'll tell you," he winks and carefully pulls her down on top of him when she's close enough.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I actually think this may work," Naomi grins, looking around at the pink, yellow, and purple balloons filling Addison's living room.

"I can't believe we had to leave work for this," Violet grumbles searching for alcohol in the cupboards. "Where's the liquor in this place?"

"Top shelf," Mark yells back, putting the finishing touches on the few white tables outside on the deck, set up and ready for dinner.

"Who's coming?" Sam asks, dropping Maya's backpack on the stairs and ushering her toward her mother so she can groom and poke the poor teenager.

"Us," Naomi waves her hand around at the office staff, "A few of the people from St. Ambrose-"

"Charlotte King?" Violet moans, popping the top on some sparkling wine, and searching for a glass.

"Yes, Charlotte King, to both of your displeasures. Maybe you two can bond. And I invited Pierce and the girls..."

"Oh come on," Mark groans, dropping the pile of silverware in his hand and marching back into the kitchen. "Naomi-"

"It's her family," she states plainly and shrugs.

"You didn't invite any of her other family did you?" Mark glares, clearly questioning whether or not Mrs. Montgomery will be gracing them with her presence.

"No, she was...busy."

"Don't tell Addison." Mark heads back outside, to finish his job, and checks the wall clock one more time.

"I'm not planning on it," Naomi pauses before noticing that everyone else, Pete included, is consumed in other conversation, and then follows Mark. "She's been in a really great mood lately."

"Yeah," Mark smiles. "That's why...I hope this doesn't ruin it."

"I don't think it will," Naomi pats his shoulder. "Do...did something happen with you guys or...is she just coming around?"

"I don't know," he says quite seriously. Addison, since their fight on has been nothing but a glimmering ray of sunshine and while sometimes he wants to question it, he knows better than to mess with the fried nerves and her over the top freak outs. If it needs to end, it will and they'll deal with all consequences and implications of said mood swing. But he's not going to be the guy to burst her bubble. "She's certainly easier to handle this way."

"Yeah," Naomi concurs. "She is even talking to me again. Everything is going okay with her schedule?"

"As far as I know," Mark nods. "I wish she wouldn't be so intent on killing herself but until something happens my tongue is kind of tied."

"If she's careful-"

"She's good," he red lights and halts the conversation when the doorbell rings. Forty seconds later he has a squealing child attached to his leg. "Hello."

"Mark! Mark!" Ellie jumps, trying to get into his tight grasp. "Guess what?"

"What?" he laughs, attacked and triumphed by her energy.

"Daddy says we are moving to the place with all the trees and a big yard and the-"

"You're moving," Mark says calmly, not wanting to disturb her spouting. "When Ellie?"

"Daddy says soon. Probably a week...or I dunno. Where's Addie?"

"She's on her way," he tugs her closer to him, "But hey Ellie?" He takes her jumbled response as a go-ahead. "This is a surprise party for Aunt Addie. Have you ever been to a surprise party?"

She nods, her curls bouncing over the straps of her green dress. "Haley had a 'prise birthday party and she had ponies and-"

"Yes, like Haley so when Aunt Addie comes in we will yell 'Surprise!' alright?" He smiles when she appears to get it. "Where's your dad?" He watches her fingers point toward the house and he gingerly drops her back down to her own feet and steers her toward Maya, the only other child entity present.

"Pierce, can I get a word?"

"Hey man," Pierce smiles and sets his drink on the counter. "Nice place she has here. I never really saw the inside."

"Oh," Mark looks around, surveying the mounting crowd, "Yeah, it's nice. Can we talk...somewhere more private?"

"Sure."

Mark drags him upstairs and nearly throws Ellie's makeshift bedroom door open. He stomps to the center of the room and opens his arms.

"What are you doing?" Pierce asks, taking a seat on the low to the ground bed.

"I did this," he points toward the dresser, "I put that thing together. It took hours and I was there when Ellie picked out the color for her walls. I painted all fucking weekend making sure she'd like it. I lugged that damn antique bookshelf up the stairs in the dark and I was home when the delivery man dropped off her bed. I bought her that music box and I played dolls with her for hours while you were off gallivanting and Addison was downstairs dealing with a colicky infant."

"Mark- I don't...do you want me to reimburse you?" Pierce shifts nervously on the bed, hands growing sticky with anticipation.

"You don't even want her! You don't want them, you never did, and now you are moving them away from the only family they have!"

"I'm their father, and we are moving approximately five hundred miles to the north, San Francisco, not the middle of the country or something. My firm is opening a new office and I need to head up there to oversee some things due to the conditions of my tentative partnership. I can't screw this up and San Francisco has great schools...she'll adjust. Kids are resilient like that."

"She doesn't deserve this," Mark grumbles to his shoes, more upset at himself for being a jackass than anything else.

"Well that's how life works unfortunately," Pierce rolls his eyes.

"Where's Kennedy?"

"I don't...Naomi has her I think."

"You think?!" Mark shouts.

"Relax man, damn. She's fine. Naomi is competent and I trust her."

"Well, I don't trust you," Mark retorts angrily.

Pierce lets his head fall to the side in confusion. "Did I do something to you that I am unaware of?"

Mark paces forward, filled with pent up rage, and stops just a few inches from the other man's face. "You left them."

"I came back!"

"But you didn't want to." And he takes personal issue with people who don't want their children. It's a byproduct of his upbringing and long gone but nothing changes the blinking button that won't disengage once it's been pushed.

"What! You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to be the asshole who can't hold it together long enough to take care of his kids? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I miss my wife and I'm sorry that I...couldn't but I'm trying. I'm doing my best and regrettably you had to be there for the lowest point in my life."

"Mark, what are you doing?" Addison asks, tentatively slipping into the testosterone fueled room.

"Nothing." He dashes from the room and pounds his fist into the wall on the way back to the guests but it doesn't make him feel any better. Instead, he pauses just outside, nursing his ego and throbbing hand, hoping to catch a bit of their conversation.

"I'm...I don't...Pierce." Addison bites her lip, wishing the blood would gush free so she could escape without another scratch on her dented armor.

"It's fine. I get it, I do...understand. I'm just...going to go grab my kids and...congratulations Addison." He shuffles numbly to the door before turning back around. "I do love them, you know. It may not seem like it...but it's hard, so hard most days."

"I know," she whispers back watching him gracelessly tumble out the doorway. When she finds the gall to shake off the emotions her feet retreat, running into Mark. "What the hell was that?"

"I...was talking," he explains pitifully.

"Looks like you were being an idiot."

"He's moving! He's taking them Addison."

"Not our problem Mark," she spells out slowly. "Look, I know we don't see eye to eye on this and I never understand where you are coming from so let's just go downstairs, think of a little lie, get some ice on your hand, and try to enjoy my surprise?"

"Fine," he sulks, propped up against the wall.

"I do like that you fight for them though," she says as they descend, effectively cutting off any reply he could have by immersing herself in the pile of friends and co-workers.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

A few short hours after everyone dispersed and Mark headed next door for his much needed poker time with the guys Addison finds herself locked amongst the sea of matching baby clothes and multi-colored blankets. She figures it will probably take until they are in front of her screaming for the whole thing to come together but for now, amidst the endless socks and tiny hats, she feels absolutely nothing. More accurately, she feels like she is cleaning up after someone else's baby shower.

The pale wrapping paper, tissue paper and whimsical gift bags were hauled out to the trash before the last attendee had even left. The food had been cleared and stored back in the refrigerator for another time. She did her best to eat, especially in front of everyone and she was quite proud with the results of a few people teasing her about consuming for three. In truth, most of them don't know. At least half of the people here think she is having Mark's baby and they certainly don't doubt there is only one on the way. Addison, never caring and ceaselessly exhausted, hasn't corrected a single soul since she's been back. She lets them think what they want, hear what they want, and gossip about what they want.

It's self preservation really. There's no energy to fight the good fight anymore.

She grabs another small dress to fold before scooping up the whole mess and dumping it into a half empty box in the would-be office downstairs. She doesn't know where a nursery will go and she doesn't have anything color schemes picked out for the walls and cribs. It's the opposite of everything, of how she thought these things would go, and perhaps that, more than the rest of it, is what bothers her the most.

She has, in effect, been robbed of the only thing she desired for over half of her life. The main problem is that the only thief in the building is presently shoving new bottles and pacifiers into the trashcan outside and she doesn't know what to do with that.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

He gropes around in the useless porch provided light trying to find the doorbell before surrendering and knocking heavily until she answers.

"Pierce, did you forget something?" Addison looks behind her, at the pristine living room she's been gutting (nesting, in the worst possible way) to discover nothing that could remotely belong to Ellie.

"You look so much like her. I forgot," he says stepping forward, invading her space, and forcing her back against the art covered wall.

"Pierce," Addison hums softly, afraid of the deranged look he is currently sporting.

"And Ellie loves you," he comments, progressing further, until their shirts are rubbing against each other. "You could come with us."

"I...can't," she argues weakly, not wanting to upset the light grasp he has on her wrists. She cringes when he brushes his cheek against hers, eyes closed, and sighs.

"So much like her." He pushes his face against hers more forcibly and takes in the scent of her hair, very much resembling his dead wife's everyday smell.

"You shouldn't...be here, where's Ellie?" Addison feels him relax against her, body melting into hers every so slightly. "Pierce, I'm not Reagan. I'm not, I'm not," she urges him, tears beginning to trickle down her face. "Let me go, please, let go."

"I miss her," he laments, refusing to move, his weight keeping her trapped but the emotional toll tilting the air of unease.

"Me too," she nods her head against his, wiggling a hand free and wrapping it around his back to run imperceptible shapes and lines. "Me too."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I believe it's for you," Sam slurs out, bottle tipping from side to side as he reenters the room where Cooper and Pete are consorting about how to cheat best against "Mark The Shark".

"Addie," Mark grins. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Can you come home soon?" She asks, still shaken from her run-in with Pierce. Who, against her advice spent the better portion of the last hour reciting all the ways he loved her sister, and slouching against the wall while she tried to support them both. She's had enough for the day.

"You okay?" He reaches for her stomach and she deflects his hands before he can even get close.

"They're fine, I just...was wondering."

"Come join us," he proposes and grabs her trembling, cold fingers.

"No, I'm not in the mood...to be one of the guys right now," she declines.

"Happy Addison is gone?" He questions sadly. She nods and he bitterly pushes just a bit further. "She was kind of fake anyway though so what's it matter, right?"

"Mark-"

"I don't want you to pretend with me!" he yells, gathering the attention of the other players and drawing a few weary eyes. "We said we would do this together, you said you wanted-"

"I do want you and...us...I didn't...I don't," she clarifies, "want to lose you again."

"You aren't going to."

"I just figured enough is enough," Addison discloses, her voice discernibly lower than her counterparts, who she suspects is merely looking for a reason to argue. "I want to be happy."

"Yeah." He pulls her a little closer, not noticing when she slides her head to his shoulder. "We'll get to the happy part, I promise."

"Ok," she grins, more relieved that the charade doesn't have to continue any longer than about ever being happy again. It'll never be the same as it was and the constant sadness isn't so bad. She almost enjoys it there. It's easy to know what to do and though screwed up, it works for her.

"Come be my helper," he tugs on her dark blue shirt. "We'll show them how it's done."

"Only a few hands," she bargains.

"They don't have much left to lose," he grins and points to their dwindling chip piles.

"Addison!" Cooper shouts with glee.

"Hey wait, no cheating Sloan. No hiding cards up her sleeves," Pete whines into his beer bottle, attempting not to notice Addison's red cheeks and tear stung eyes. He can't help it, his heart tugs a little anyway.

"We both know I don't need that kind of help," Mark says cockily while Sam reshuffles and deals. He tightens his hold on the redhead in his lap and settles down to deal with life's new developments. All in all, he's neither surprised nor disappointed. And he thinks that, in itself, should say something.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"We have to do something! We can't just sit around and hope it all works out!" Mark nearly screams through her house, later that week, still concerned with Ellie's impending departure. She wasn't at the office this week, and though Naomi assures him it's just because Pierce got unexpected time off, he doesn't believe her.

"I can't do this," Addison says back, half asleep, still cuddled around a pillow on the couch. She was awoken from her pleasant nap ten minutes ago when the front door slammed and Mark started ranting on and on about how he is a shitty father. For her part, she's done a lot of halfhearted glaring and idle threats.

"They should be with us Addison. We can take care of them,"

"We," she motions between them, "can't even take care of ourselves right now. What makes you think a judge-"

"Maybe we don't go that route," Mark says instantly, and yes, he has been thinking about this non-stop for five days.

"What do you mean, we don't go that route?" Addison asks suspiciously but still undisturbed enough to close her eyes.

"Maybe we just ask him," Mark shrugs convinced.

"Maybe we just ask him? To what? Surrender his children to our incapable hands for the rest of their lives?"

"He said it. He said he never wanted to be a father-"

"Be that as it may, it's not our place to take it away from him."

"He's unfit!" Mark resorts to yelling again. He can't comprehend why she doesn't get this.

"And I will be too," she tells him quietly.

"Addie no." He acts on impulse and drop his knees to the carpet, searching for a hand to hold under the tightly knitted strings. "You will be great, I know you will."

"When I'm not? What happens then? Are you going to take my kids and run off?"

"No," he answers befuddled by her reaction. When did this turn into them against one another? "That's not...Addison, we need to help those kids."

"Since when do you care two licks about children? You always say they are loud and annoying and you hope they all die in stroller related accidents."

"You're embellishing just a touch there," he fixes. "And I don't know...I just know they shouldn't be with him."

She throws the blanket off her legs, and over his head, before standing and grabbing her purse of the kitchen counter.

"Where are you going?"

"Hospital," she answers honestly. "I forgot to sign off-"

"Have someone else do it," he instructs angered by her retreat.

"Can't, plus I'm on call today and I should probably check up on a few things."

"Addison! We are having a discussion." He chases her to the back door and out into the green plants that line the walkway to the garage.

"It's not really a discussion Mark, it's more you yelling at me and not listening when I say that I can't."

"You won't even try."

"I tried!" She spins around suddenly, letting him figure out the direction change. "I tried for months and I'm no good so really, this "discussion" is just about over." Admitting failure, at anything, is right up there with watching patients die helplessly on her list of things in life to loathe.

"Addie," he pouts, grabbing her arm and holding firmly.

"Let go Mark. I'm warning you. It's better that I leave right now." She yanks her own hand free and quickly unlocks the car, driving away as soon at the garage door opens all the way.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Dr. Montgomery?" The small brunette nurse behind her squeaks.

"Yes?" Addison spins around, chart in hand, with a scowl still on her face from the fight hours ago.

"You're..." her voice drops lower, "you're wet." She points toward the dark scrubs, freshly dampened.

"Oh," Addison swallows nervously. "Thank you...Nurse...excuse me." She bolts for the nearest empty room, ignoring the frightened calls asking if she needs assistance, and begins to untie the drawstring on her pants with a silent prayer. "Oh...no. No, no, no." She whips them back up around her waist again, not wanting an untimely meeting with a co-worker and begins flinging open drawers searching for the right medication. Upon finding it, she forces three breaths in, now finally feeling what she assumed was nothing more than back pain all week.

"Montgomery, you're scaring the living daylights out of my staff- What are you doing?" Charlotte demands, Addison's back turned and blocking the view of her expertly inserting her own IV into the back of her hand. She squeezes her eyes shut tight with the pinch and then exhales loudly. "Montgomery, you better not be pulling stunts," Charlotte storms, marching over to the other side of the bed and catching Addison with a syringe between her teeth. "What the hell are you doing?" She holds her hand out for Addison to spit the needle into.

"I...need that," Addison explains, still refusing to think like anything other than a doctor.

"Why?"

"Preterm," she gestures to her pants embarrassed at her lack of ability to time things.

"You're water broke on my hallway floor?" Charlotte glowers.

"I'm bleeding," Addison makes clear and then grabs the medicine back hastily.

"Gimme that," Charlotte demands and pushes her against the upright bed. She jams her thumb onto the redhead's wrist and whips out a blood pressure cuff before there is rebuff. "Relax, Montgomery. Soon you'll have a bevy of idiots waiting for you out there."

"It's too soon. I can't...you need to...please," she closes her eyes against the raging pain and clinches her teeth together.

"What is this anyway?" Charlotte asks, holding the concoction to her new patient's hand.

"Magnesium sulfate, what do you think it is? Morphine?"

"Never know, that's what I'd want," Charlotte pushes the liquid in hesitantly, waiting for a code blue to happen, but relaxes when Addison does. "Who do I need to call?"

"No one," Addison replies without thought. "Just, give me an hour in here. I need an hour."

"You're a moron. Who is your doctor?"

Addison squishes her head back down against the standard issue pillow and slides onto her left side. "Charlotte, you don't get to be the best in your field by being a moron. I said I need an hour...to relax and hydrate. There's nothing I'm doing that will further complicate-"

"This could be serious, you should at least be hooked up to a fe-"

"Preterm labor happens in over fifty percent of all twin pregnancies. I do this for a living. Now get out and turn off the lights," she waves a hand at the door and holds her breath as the short blond scampers off.

She figures she has twenty minutes before Mark shows up (because Charlotte will cover her own ass first and foremost) with his lid blown completely off and right now, as her daughters pound away on her ribs in obvious distress, she needs those twenty minutes to reassess and assemble a plan.

She's not ready.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	37. A delicate sense of balance

A/N: I realized, as I was hammering this out, a few things. Namely that if I was to keep going you all would be forced to read forty pages to get to the point, because things need to happen here first. So, I broke it into two parts. This way you all have something to hold you over and I can be lengthy with the birth scene. Next part, cross my heart, hope this dies. Thanks to **escapismrocks** for reminding me why I write this thing, and to everyone who indulges me with their patience. I hope you enjoy-

**_A Delicate Sense of Balance  
- Pelican  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"This way," Charlotte instructs with a harsh growl and begins to trot off, not caring to see if Mark is actually trailing behind her like a good subordinate. She doesn't wait outside at the entrance of a hospital for sixty plus minutes only to have a conversation with someone who she couldn't care less about, even if he is one of her best employees.

"What happened?" Mark asks, catching up to her quick stride, breathless from swearing at every car in between here and the lazy beach.

"We don't know exactly."

"What do you mean you don't know exactly?" Mark questions, his voice raised as they enter the column of elevators.

"I mean, we don't know exactly. She was in labor, she treated herself, and now she won't let anyone touch her so we," she pauses speaking significantly slower than before, "don't know exactly."

"Oh," Mark sighs, falling back against the metal capsule, fingers immediately latching onto his scalp. "Well, how did she look?"

"She looked like...Addison during a personal crisis. How the hell would I know?"

"Are they all right-"

"You don't seem to be getting this," Charlotte speaks, cutting him short and not giving it second thought. "We don't know anything, only she does, and I'd be willing to wager that she's pulling for the best possible scenario so take whatever she says with a grain of salt until we can convince her to let someone examine her."

"She hasn't been ex-"

"She won't let anyone touch her!" Charlotte yells. "Did you knock your silly little brain onto the pavement on the way?"

"No," he mumbles, mind racing, lips moving of their own accord.

"And why in heaven's name did it take you so damn long to get here?"

"Was she asking for-"

"Don't flatter yourself," Charlotte affirms. "She hasn't asked for anything other than to be left alone."

"We had a fight," Mark surrenders, as the doors announce their arrival and his boss jumps off without having to answer.

He finds himself dragging his feet a little as they march down the pristine hallway. His tennis shoes scuffle along, his fingers toying with one another, eyes trained to the floor so that everyone can't look at him like they know a terrible secret he hasn't been privy to yet. Certainly, he's not the cause here. Not the root of the problem and surveys would probably say it's a miracle she made it as far as she did doing what she's been doing but, as always, Mark feels the tinge of guilt clouding his thoughts. Surely, if she would've stayed home their day wouldn't have progressed into this sort of grim adventure.

"Sloan!" Charlotte barks as he runs into short stature.

Mark jumps back, surprised and scrubs his face with his hands. "Sorry Dr. King."

"I'm counting on you to fix this...and I called you first so you better make it right because if I have to call one of the Bennetts and get yelled at, it will be your ass I put on the line, are we clear?" She watches him nod wordlessly and then slams the nearly empty chart onto his chest before making her way back to the nurse's station, to watch the explosion from a safe distance.

There's a fleeting moment for Mark. He sees a way out, straight down to the stairwell, he could make a run for it. He used to be good in the face of opposition, at least when it was medical, but with the last person he cares about in the greater Los Angeles area lying still in the dim room, skipping off doesn't sound like the worst idea in the history of the world. Instead, he takes a breath and prepares before pushing the door back without so much as a knock. "Addie?"

And in some ways it's different than he would've imagined, her in labor. In other comparisons, he realizes he's never really dreamt of this day at all. Curled onto her left side, eyes securely shut, chest rising in a predictable and obviously controlled manner. She looks peaceful when he was prepared for a hurricane, quiet when he has been dying to hear her scream. "Addison?"

Lacking an appropriate response, or even the acknowledgment of his being, he presses forward. He drags a chair from the corner of the room to her side of the bed and merely takes a seat, pulling her hand out from it's hiding place under the white long sleeves. He patiently strokes her smooth skin for minutes that feel like hours, whisper words that he can't remember as soon as leave his mouth, and gets so sick of staring at her that he finally closes his own eyes and leans back against the chair. Mark doesn't know what to do with this adversity, truth be told he was hoping she'd be loud enough to tell him to just hold her hand or get her ice, so he lounges. Rests with a racing heart and terrified sense of what he could be letting her get away with.

But it's not his place. This isn't his to do, regardless of what either actually desires from the situation.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You should've called me as soon as it happened!" Naomi argues with the blonde in front of her.

"The patient requested-"

"The patient is out of her mind and you know that! You are supposed to protect her not...not play along!"

"I called Mark," Charlotte glares, honestly trying to win her points back. Not that she cares or anything.

"Oh," Naomi stutters. "Where is he?"

"He's in there with her," she answers easily. It's not the entire problem but just a tiny snippet.

"Well then, why did you call me?" Naomi eases slightly, her body still tensed and worried.

"I called you because they are just...napping."

"Napping?"

"Or sitting there or whatever! I don't know but I need to check her and I thought Dr. Sloan would pull his head out of his ass long enough to be of some assistance but evidently he cannot. So I called you," she nods toward the room, urging the woman to go in and make this right again before it all blows up.

Naomi opens her mouth to tell Charlotte she owes her but then realizes that in all actuality she owes the Chief of Staff. "Thank you for...calling me Charlotte."

"Doing my job," Charlotte nods and tries to visualize this smoothing over calmly. It's not so much to ask for.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison pulls as much air as she can into her lungs before releasing the breath steadily. She counts them, the breaths per minute, mostly as something to do, to keep her from completely losing her mind because this is not happening. Not today. Not this week. She decided months ago that she was going to make it to term, even if it was a rocky journey, and nothing is going to get in her way. Not even this little snafu. Ten more exhales, doing her best to ignore Mark in his entirety, and she finally comes to terms with how exhausted she is. Smashing down like a pile of red bricks, the tiredness envelops her and before she can fight back she's lifted off into the land of excruciatingly painful dreams.

That one spot in the black where people die over and over, in a variety of ways, often times at her own hand. Two people, their faces, one body under her skilled scalpel, the other twitching under her car tires. One jutting out through a fractured windshield, one bleeding out on the pavement. One beheaded, one tore wide open. Hearts stopping, eyes frozen open. It doesn't matter the ways it's worked because she can never seem to wake up, no matter how loudly she protests.

It carries on persistently, almost predictably. Blood splashed across her body from both, their voices pleading for the insanity to stop, her actions uncontrollable, her smile too bright as they die helplessly inches away.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Mark," Naomi hisses to the figure in the rapidly darkening room.

"Huh," Mark rubs his eyes, coming back around. "Naomi?"

"What are you doing?" She points to Addison, who occasionally squirms from side to side, but it's not anything Mark isn't used to. It's a dance, he just holds on as she steers them.

"She's asleep," he states, pained by remembrance of where they are, and why they are there.

"Has anyone been in to check on her?"

No," Mark shakes his head confidently. They may have fallen asleep, but he knows no one has dared come through those doors. He can only imagine the chaos that was enclosed in this space before.

Naomi reaches out for Mark's shirt, snagging him instantly, and pulls him out into the hallway so she can make her peace. "What the hell are you thinking? Are you thinking Mark!"

"I-I, she's...asleep."

"I can see that. Why aren't you doing your job? Why aren't you taking care of her?" Naomi slams her shoe into the ground, more concerned with the set of facts surrounding this than actually offending Mark. He stares back without an answer. "This is on you. You've been constantly riding her since you came back, every minute of every day and this you can't do? You want to be with Addison, then be with her. Do what's right for her even if she yells. It's not the time to be sitting on your hands!"

"I know," he admits. But she looked so...complacent for the first time in a long time and he didn't want to take that away from her either.

"How long were you in there?"

"I don't know."

"Mark-"

"What time is it?" He asks, looking at his own watch and not making any sense of it.

"Almost six-thirty. How long?"

"About two hours," he guesses, feet beginning to rock from side to side anxiously.

"So for two hours you watched her like that and didn't do anything? Do you understand...she could lose them Mark-"

"No," Mark shakes his head. "She's strong. She was good when I went in there, if there was anything wrong she would've told-"

"It's Addison...I thought you cared-"

"I do care!" he interjects hurriedly.

"Then why aren't you helping her? This is your job Mark, not mine. I should be down the hall waiting to hear about my two new nieces...not chasing you around and...doing what you should've done hours ago." She finishes, distracted by trying to dial numbers on her cell phone.

"We fought," Mark adds when she hits dial.

"People fight. That doesn't give you the right to stand by while she suffers," Naomi spits icily and then responds again only to her phone when the receptionist politely asks how she can help. Naomi has the doctor she referred to Addison paged and shipped on his way before Mark is able to conjure up a decent argument. "She is still with Dr. Everly?"

"Yeah," Mark shrugs. Part of him thought, or maybe rather hoped, that Addison really did have this under control. "Naomi, you think-"

"I'm not entertaining the idea of anything until I have some answers. Go...wait Mark. I'll come get you when I know."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addie..." Naomi mumbles stroking her arm, trying to coax her out of a deep sleep. "Addison wake up."

Addison can feel her tongue trying to peel itself from the roof of her dry mouth, and she can see when her eyes fly open, but the words don't seem to come. They're not as important as just keeping the room tension free.

"Addison, are you in pain? Are you having contractions? What did you do...exactly? I need to know so I can help you, okay?"

Addison furrows her brows in confusion. What did she do? She looks from the left of the room to the right, kicks out of the blankets someone must have put on her, and buries her head back into the warm inviting pillow.

Upon seeing the blood soaking the sheets beneath her friend, Naomi races to the door and screams out that she needs some help. Inundated with nurses and doctors she carefully picks who she wants in the room, nodding to Charlotte who pushes her way through the crowd. "We need to..."

"Yes," Charlotte agrees and takes over. "Someone go get Dr. Sloan, if she wakes up, we need him in here."

Naomi would argue that fact, given what happened earlier, but instead she yanks a gown out and with the help of a few they manage to redress the slumbering Addison, and get her hooked up to monitors that beep with their annoyance.

"They're...okay, not great but not in distress...yet," Charlotte puzzles, studying the readout.

"Give me that," Naomi snatches it away from her. "We still need to wait for-"

"I'll admit her," Charlotte agrees easily. "But for now-"

"She sleeps," Naomi gulps and falls back into a chair, anxious and inconsolable. It'll take a while to get over the image of her best friend tangled with red sheets, weak with loss, unable to explain.

"I'll get her a new bag," Charlotte points to the empty stand and then ushers everyone out of the room. "You'll-"

"I'll page you as soon as I know something," Naomi assures her. When the door clicks closed she takes the opportunity to seize the tears that have been quietly building. She brushes the watery substance off her cheeks and relaxes with a sigh. "Damn it Addison."

"Excuse me?" Someone questions from the door, light spilling in over the pair.

"Yes?" Naomi answers hesitantly. She's had enough already. This is not the way children are supposed to be brought into the world. Sure, there is screaming and death threats and it's ugly, but not...this.

"Dr. Sloan is...not here but there is a Dr. Everly who is trying to-"

"Let him in," Naomi demands, already tired from her excursions. "And find Dr. Sloan. Now."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark pads along the hardwood of the place that he calls home fervently searching for stuff to toss in his bag. So far all he has is a pair of pajamas Addison loves, her reading glasses, and her toothbrush because she hates fuzzy teeth at all times of the day. He checks the kitchen again for baby related items before retreating to the yellow nursery upstairs and grabbing provisions that are not meant for the two that are waiting to be born. He shoves in diapers and wipes, hats and socks, onesies and sleepers, pushing and pushing until the small luggage protests loudly about being closed.

On his way out he bypasses the outfits meant for newborns in the office and the pacifiers in the trash.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"This is not the time," Naomi explains to her old friend as her hands shake, "I don't want to know where you went or...what you've been doing. This is not the time-"

"But-" Mark begins as he holds up the tan colored leather.

"I don't want to hear it. Do what you have to do but keep it to yourself and do not under any circumstance force me to walk in on you again, understand?"

"I didn't do anything wrong," Mark explains patiently and then holds out his prize again for her to inspect.

Naomi takes the objects and rifles through it with a small smile. "You're off the hook."

"Is she awake?"

"No," Naomi reveals, eyes slated with depression and hunger. "I was thinking about running down and grabbing some coffee and I need to tell Sam to keep Maya for the night, I want to be here, can you-"

"I can sit with her," Mark nods assuredly. He can do this. He is ready enough for both of them, at least with his baby clothes to shield him. He walks into the room more confidently this time, prepared for what is happening, safely tucking the bag on the floor by his feet and grabs her hand to toy with again.

"Addie," he startles, upon hearing her shuffle around, her eyes watching him intently. "You're awake."

Addison purses her lips and tries to force something out, resigning when nothing seems quite good enough. He's certainly mad, nearly red in the face, and she's disgraced at her bad timing and lack of control.

"You should probably stay on your left side," he notes as she rolls onto her back. "Or not."

She exhales sternly, wanting to be better at all of this, needing to say something.

"Naomi went for coffee, she said she'd be back but...I went home and I got your pajamas if you want to change." He pauses, not helping when she struggles to sit upright amidst a tangle of tubing, cords, and unruly gowns. "I know you didn't want it to be like this but...this is a good hospital and I'm...ready, we're ready to do this Addison."

"No," she recites softly, tone empty, voice an echo of all sentiments before it.

"I need to get Everly back in here. I know he'd want to speak with you when you are awake." He reaches down for the soft bag by his feet and places it on the edge of her bed as a truce. Her hair is absolutely wild, stained with perspiration and exhaustion, little curls forming by her scalp and jutting out without care. And she looks pale, he thinks it could be the lighting, but his mind knows that he's used to hospitals and that she's actually plainly white. If he touched her, leaned out a finger to smooth down the waves or to place a kiss on her listless temple, she may very well shatter into a million pieces. "And don't yell but I think Naomi called...Mom."

She turns her head at that, face still without emotion, but frenzy enough to substitute. She grabs the cup of warm water off the tray with a shaking hand and promptly spills the majority of it on her gown before her muscles warm up to the idea of satisfying her desire. Cotton absorbent and dry as sandpaper, her throat protests the water and she sputters it back up and onto her chin, letting the stream come down her neck and ungracefully pool at the hem of her hospital attire. "Sorry," she apologizes childishly, wiping the moisture from her skin and adverting her eyes from his disapproving stare.

"Do...it's okay...you want some more water?" He takes the cup from her easily, and retreats without provocation. He takes time finding ice refilling the plastic pitcher, not wanting to go back just yet, and not able to cut and run. When he returns she's back to her left side, clothes damp, eyes dark, looking very much the Addison of old and not the Addison of last week's happy. He drops the container on the table and sets the cup next to it unsure if she wants to bother with it again. "Addison," he shakes his head befuddled and queasy.

"I'm sorry," she croaks out finally, "I'm so sorry Mark."

"It's okay," he assures her, dragging his chair forward, brave enough to stroke her matted hair.

"I should've stayed home. I should've compromised."

He's not about to disagree with that, pride be damned. "I-"

"It's too soon," Addison whimpers pitifully, curling her hands back into the laundered sheets of the bed.

"Addison, it's...you're not in labor anymore. You...handled it." However much he hates to say it, he's glad she is who she is and was where she was when it all came undone.

"I know," she tells him soundly. "But now I can't work anymore."

"That's what you're upset about?" Mark asks, feeling his tirade begin to build. "You're worried because you may have to take some time off from work?"

"You don't understand."

"Clearly!" Mark stands, pushing the chair back roughly with his calves, letting it jolt into the wall unamused. "Do you...you're the most selfish human on the planet Addison. Do you ever even think about them? Do you?"

Eyes falling wide, Mark pacing the foot of her bed, Addison sets her sights on the stupid picture hanging from the wall. It probably sounds ridiculous out of context but she feels healthier working. She feels like she can focus better and not dwell so much in the sadness of it all. It's better if she's busy and it is, in the utmost, her way of looking out for the twins. That's all she can provide, as far as she can extend. What will happen when she's at home in bed, wrapped up in nothing, that's what scares her for them. However illogical, it's what she believes. She cries because she can and because the person three feet away who is supposed to rubbing her back is screaming in her general direction instead.

No, he has one thing right, she didn't want it to be like this.

"Add-" Naomi stops in the open door listening to Mark gradually lose steam. "Hey! Knock it off." She rushes forward, ditching her coffee immediately and looks over Addison's wobbly stats. Her protective side kicks in full force and she's busy talking herself out of throwing Mark out while reading feverishly.

"She-"

"Save it," Naomi warns, already not in the mood. "Whatever it is, with or without cause...you need to stop. Both of you. This is a...calm environment. We need calm. Understand me?"

"Yes," Mark mutters and leans against the closed blinds.

"Addison?"

Naomi startles her back out of her trance and she whispers her agreement, then closes her eyes. Maybe she can sleep through the next two or so months.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Under the strictest of orders, some bribing, and promises all around Addison is released two days later, much to her dismay. At the hospital there were at least cases she could eavesdrop on, rack her brain for information and offer a helping hand. At home there are books and television and Mark constantly, none of which she can focus on properly.

Mark leads her through the front door of her own house by her arm gently, furthering her frustrated attitude. She doesn't need her hand held and she doesn't need him here every four seconds to fetch endless drinks. What she needs is something to become immersed in, work or otherwise. She has no contingency plan, and in hindsight she really should've seen this coming. Maybe she can take up knitting. Naomi could teach her.

"You want to stay down here or go upstairs to bed?" Mark asks, easing his grip on her light cream colored sweater.

"Doesn't matter," Addison replies with a glare. "Don't you work today?"

"I did earlier. I took the rest of the afternoon off though, to be with you." He pulls her along, slowly taking stairs, not allowing her to merely jog up them like she used to. Everything is precise and deliberate. He has control.

"You didn't have to do that," Addison tells him angrily as they climb. If it wasn't for him she would've been in bed minutes ago. It's agonizing and she'd rather be alone.

"I wanted to."

They find her bed nearly five minutes later, and she could swear they were moving backwards at some point. She sturdies herself against the mattress waiting for the inevitable click of the television and the probably return of Mark. Sure enough, he takes the space next to her and hands over the remote. "What do you want to watch?" she asks, already bored by the screen.

"Whatever," he shrugs. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

"We should eat anyway," he hops off the bed and dashes for the door, needing to escape the mounting strain. "You...rest and I will go make something."

"You can't cook," Addison reminds him but snuggles down into the light, familiar pillows anyway.

'I'll figure something out." Mark races out of the room, nearly tripping over his own feet and flying head first down the stairs. Cupboard doors spring open revealing next to nothing and he settles on peanut butter and honey, one of the few things he can do with his eyes closed.

He spreads the creamy substance on the bread, careful not to tear the fragile wheat. He pulls plates from shelves, and glasses from the dishwasher and even finds an unspoiled apple in the refrigerator, deciding to take his chances and cut it. But when it's time to return he hesitates. Stops mid-step, lunch in hand, juice balanced precariously and ready to spill all over the hardwood floor.

Fortunately, the doorbell saves him from having to make a decision, from having to force himself to crawl up the stairs and face her with a smile and comforting shoulder to rest on. He wants to run with every fiber of his being, whether that be hopping a plane or simply fighting with her until she's had enough and kicks him out. The power of fear is severely underrated.

"Hi..." Mark grins bashfully and pulls the door open wider revealing the woman who spent most of his days yelling at him for pulling Kathleen's hair and instructing him how to properly take out the garbage.

"Mark," Susan croons, "Are you going to let me in?"

"Yeah," Mark grunts and swings the door back with his foot, arms still laden with food.

"Naomi called." Susan drops her suitcase by the door and promptly surveys the house, eyes tracing trinkets and art that was once displayed somewhere else, a somewhere else she used to visit more frequently when her son was alive. Dinners, Christmas Eve, random birthdays.

"She told me," Mark replies weakly, suddenly overcome with a bout of self-consciousness.

"Where's Addie?" Susan asks, spinning on her heels, looking over the empty living room.

"Upstairs, I...was making lunch."

"You're going to feed her that?"

"I...yeah," he sputters, feigning an odd need to go hide under the couch.

"Come with me Mark," she instructs and starts wandering through the house until she stumbles upon the kitchen. She pulls open refrigerator doors unannounced and rifles through drawers trying to find the means to make a decent meal. Setting up shop, she fires up the stove and begins slicing through brilliant green vegetables. "How is she?"

"Addison?" Mark questions, surprised out of his self-imposed silence.

"Are you living with any other women I should know about?" Susan asks pointedly, completely aware of who Mark is and how he spends his days and nights, mostly nights. You want to believe in the best for your children but sometimes it pays off to just be realistic about the state of affairs they find themselves in. She smirks when Mark shakes his head, reminding her of that very same ten year-old who denied ripping apart Nancy's Barbie.

"She's okay, I guess," Mark answers finally, quietly. Hell if he knows how she is. He's busy being scared out of his mind and trying not to show it. He figures if push comes to shove, literally, and all else fails he could, maybe, possibly deliver some babies...provided everything went well, which it is sure not to. He makes a mental note to plead with her on going to the hospital before it's too late, because she's going to think she knows better, but he doesn't want to get jumbled into the mess of a home delivery.

"Okay, you guess?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

"Lose the attitude," Susan warns, knowing exactly how to handle him.

Mark scrubs his face, fingers running over stubble that hasn't been trimmed in too long. "Sorry, she's...so infuriating."

"Women," Susan shakes her head with a small laugh, drawing Mark's attention. "You need to take it easy on her Mark Sloan. This is not fun for her either, trust me. I would know."

"This bed rest, she's going to either drive us crazy or we'll kill each other."

"Or both," Susan adds knowledgeably.

"She's mad she can't work," Mark relents, wanting someone to just take his side in all of this. Why is he the only one looking out for her unborn children? Not his kids, hers. And for as much as he wants to be a part of it, and get over that, it's always there. Lingering behind on a short leash of ghosts, ready to nag him at a moment's notice.

"Have you asked her why?"

"What?"

"Have you asked her why she is upset about not working?"

"No," Mark admits. "We got into a fight before...she..."

"You didn't do this Mark." Susan takes a slight break from flipping and pats his arm. "These things, they happen, it's not your fault."

"I kept pushing," he argues, shirking away from her touch, not wanting the pity. He hasn't taken any form well since Derek's passing. He just wants an understanding, not commiserating. "I should've stopped when she said. I...if she was here we would've been relaxed."

"She made a choice to go to work. That's on her, not you, regardless."

Mark sighs and then gives up on the charade. There's no point with this woman, she sees right through him. "She has nieces-"

"I know, I saw them once in Seattle. You had run off."

"I...I'm sorry about that," he says lowly, "I couldn't."

"I know," Susan nods, searching for real plates. He ran away the other time too, only to return again up in Derek's room, comforting her son while he grieved the loss of his father, of their father. "What about her nieces?"

"They're moving," he sees her head bob as she follows along, " and I was...hoping that maybe Addison would take custody of them."

"They have a father," Susan states plainly.

"He's-He doesn't want them," Mark elaborates, carefully choosing his words. "We could do it. I know Addison doesn't think it's a good idea, but we could."

"Mark, you're about to have two very needy, demanding mouths screaming through the house. And on top of that you want to throw more children into the mix? Children who aren't yours, who aren't hers, simply because someone made some unwanted decisions in their life?"

Mark frowns at himself. This always seems to come out so wrong when he explains it to people and yet in his mind it's crystal clear. "They...shouldn't be with him."

"And they should be with you?"

"Addison-"

"Sweetheart," Susan begins, attempting not to patronize him, "you know as well as I do that Addison is hardly capable of looking after herself right now."

"Yes, but-"

"No buts Mark Sloan. If she says no then the answer is no. For now. Revisit it when you get settled in, once things begin to feel normal but don't you dare keep pushing her when she's already given you an answer."

"She won't even think about it!" Mark whines pathetically. Being around this woman does not do good things to him. "And she won't talk about it. She shuts down. You don't know what living with her is like. If I don't push we don't get anything done. You think there's a nursery in this house for those kids? You think she cares on way or another-"

"I'm sure she cares," Susan assures him, trying to calm the tirade that certainly looks like it has been looming in the dust for a while.

"You'll see," Mark shakes his head, "You'll see."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

After an incredibly stressed and uncomfortable lunch Addison shooed her guest and housemate away so she could shower, bathe at Mark's insistence, and look presentable for whatever they were dreaming up downstairs. So far, on day one, she has found that television is just as boring as she thought it would be and managed to grab three extra hours of sleep so that no one would try and talk to her. She lathers, rinses, repeats, and takes her time wallowing in the warm water. She's allowed a day or so to feel sorry for herself. Most people would be excited to have months off from work, no consequences attached, but Addison will more than likely start sewing up fruit and read through every medical related thing in the house at least once. Maybe she'll even scream diagnosis' at the TV when it starts to act like everything is a ticking time bomb mystery. Anything to keep her on her toes, anything to keep her occupied.

She dries quickly, noting that it's well past five and that Susan should be departing shortly for wherever she is staying. A small part of her is angry, but the larger part is grateful no matter how awkward it is.

"You know, I looked like that at 20 weeks with Maggie alone."

Addison jumps, clenches her towel around herself more securely and lets out a shaky breath. "You scared me."

"Well, I didn't intend to. Come," Susan insists, patting the bed invitingly.

"I'm...I need clothes," Addison replies headed straight for her closet. She returns proper, a lazy blue dress falling just above her knees. Reluctantly, she complies and takes a seat on the edge of her bed, her territory invaded thoroughly.

"How are you?"

"I'm good," Addison nods, attempting to convince both herself and the other party. She hasn't been this rested in months and that has to count for something.

"Please," Susan admonishes. "You can talk to me. I'm still your mother. I know a thing or two about housing humans."

"I know." Addison pushes back on the heels of her hands and scoots further toward the headboard, feet dangling over the edge. She doesn't feel related, that's for certain. She feels like a stranger, just flown in to stir things, willing to leave only when the dust really kicks up.

"Mark told me you were angry about not working-"

"I wish he would stop-"

"Addie, let me finish." Susan halts herself for a second and then progresses. "Mark tells me a lot of things, he's concerned." She lifts up a hand when Addison tries to interrupt again, both knowing she has better manners than this. "You shouldn't be upset with him for being concerned and I know you're a big girl, very capable, but he needs to help. He needs to feel like he is helping."

"I-"

"I haven't known you as long as I've known my boys," she pauses, her throat constricting abruptly. "And I don't know you as well as I know my boys but...between the two of us, Mark has been concerned with your well being. From day one. Through the teasing and snide comments, that's how he communicates and you were...good with that. You understand him, so stop pretending you don't because you aren't fooling me."

"Yes," Addison agrees easily.

"When Derek brought you home...I thought..." she stops, not able to continue on. "If he was alive, we both know you wouldn't be here with Mark. You have an opportunity, and I'm aware that it's been outright awful lately, but ease up because...he hurts too, whether or not he shows it to anyone."

"I know," Addison nods, flashing back to sleeping bag memories on dusty hardwood floors down the street. "I want to be better-"

"It's not always about being better," Susan smiles. "Sometimes it's about allowing the bad and surviving the help that comes with it." She clears her throat and stands, having her fill. "We'll talk more tomorrow when I come back. Mark was insistent that he wasn't going to go back to work but I informed him that I'd keep an eye on you while I was in town this week, not that you need to be watched. Just to give him peace of mind, and to give you a break."

She leaves Addison alone, with her jumbled thoughts, dreading the next seven or so days to come. Of course when Mark proposed taking time off in the car on the way home she kept her mouth in a pencil straight angry line of hate, but somehow this seems so much worse.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

By day four Addison wants to scream and cry and beg for mercy, and it's only the half way point. So far she had been forced into lying on her couch while her once mother in-law meticulously cleaned and baby proofed electrical outlets, dangerous toxins and the stairs, though neither twin would be mobile for quite some time. Addison found it all completely unnecessary but today was the topper. Spread across her lap dejectedly was a magazine because Susan said if she couldn't go shopping then the shopping would come to her.

Wasn't it just a few days before that she was throwing this sort of stuff in the garbage?

"Addison, you don't have to pick a scheme but you could at least pick a color," Susan barges through her thoughts of suicide. "Pink? Or perhaps something less girlish, green? A light green would be lovely in this house."

She looks through the pages again. Bugs, flowers, English Tea Party, sea creatures. This is torture. "I don't know."

"How can I decorate if you don't know?"

"I'm tired," Addison forces a yawn, for the hundredth time. "I'm just going to go lie down for a few minutes."

"Addie, we are doing this. You don't want to, I understand, but pick just one and I'll do the rest." She thrusts the magazine forward once more, daring Addison's temper to stay cool.

She takes the sad pages uninterested, and flips open to a random number, points, and throws it back down on the couch. She doesn't know what she picked, what it will look like when it's done, or how much her girls will appreciate or hate it. "Happy?"

"Addison," Susan begins but then retreats as the redhead makes her way upstairs. This was harder than she thought it would be. She reminds herself to give Mark a little more credit and stares down at the jungle animals crawling over the opened pages. No, that's not Addison-y enough.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark happens upon the house lifeless three days later, after being paged in for a burn victim who refused the service of any other "quack" in the building. He was reluctant but roused Addison enough from her constant state of sleep to tell her he would be back later. She didn't reply but he's positive she heard him. Now he hesitates calling out her name, concerned she is still asleep though the orange sun rose hours ago, he climbs the stairs.

Their room is empty. The hallway without shuffling socked feet. Guest rooms vacant. Kitchen undisturbed. His heart quickens each time another location turns up blanks. Five minutes and his search has revealed that she is definitely not inside. He jogs back down the stairs once again and fumbles onto the untouched deck.

His eyes connect with the tossing waves instantly but there's no body washed ashore, no limbs fighting the currents. He fishes his cell out, holding down the 2 key, and listens to her phone buzz inside on the coffee table. The garage looks exactly the same, her car where it is supposed to be. He gets Naomi's voicemail and then hangs up only to bolt into Sam's house without knocking. It's seven in the morning but he's pretty sure Sam would still be around at this time. Apparently, he is wrong.

The last option is to start searching the city, his fingers still working their way through his newly shortened contacts list. She's not at the practice, not secretly giving birth without him, not inhaling cheesecake with Naomi, not shoe gazing at her favorite store. Addison has vanished. Done exactly what he feared she would do left on her own. That or cause serious permanent damage but at her rate she could be doing both at once. He tears back up the driveway, and nearly hits another car as he reverses hastily into the street.

Then he sees her. Red hair pulled back, shoulders kept level by the seatbelt of Sam's vehicle. His brakes grab violently but it's enough to keep them from colliding. Changing tactics, he parks again and storms his way next door, catching her as she walks calmly to the door with a smile on her face. She waves at Sam as he leaves again, presumably for work this time, and then settles herself on the couch, Mark hot on her trail.

"What-where-Addison!"

"Morning," she greets and reaches for the blanket by her feet.

"Morning? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry," she shrugs disingenuously.

His eyes zone in and beat red as she relaxes even more, cuddling into the cushions. "Are you kidding me? What the hell were you doing because last time I checked you were supposed to be here, sitting or sleeping. Not running around town!" He paces because he can, because he's been awake for over twenty-four hours and because if his hair wasn't already graying it sure as sin would be now.

"I wasn't running around town Mark," Addison scoffs, eyelids already drooping, very used to her mid-morning nap routine. She narrowly escaped the end of the week without killing Mrs. Shepherd, very narrowly and what she doesn't need is a fight. So she keeps it stilted and quiet.

"Can you explain what you were doing or is it a secret?"

"I was looking at your house," she replies, fingers beginning to flip through the article she wrote nearly five years ago on the parallels between premature labor and certain genetic disorders. She was as bored writing it as she is now reading it. Definitely not one of her best efforts.

"Did we find a buyer?" Mark slips onto the end of the couch, taking her feet in his lap against her askance, thumbs digging gently into her smooth skin. Clearly she doesn't care if he's angry and wants to flip out, and without her temper and insistence to egg him on he fizzles quickly. He's not one to get mad and stay mad for long. It rises slowly, explodes, and disperses faster than the initial disaster. He's a forgiving individual at the bottom of it all, and he'd rather love than argue.

"No," she shakes her head and then wriggles down further, letting his magical hands work their way up her calves.

"Then-"

"Sam drove me, I wasn't walking for more than ten minutes tops and I'm sorry that you were worried. I wasn't planning on being gone long and...I wasn't, you just got home at the wrong time," she expels all in one breath. Whatever it takes to end the conversation.

"Ok," he gives in, trying not to respond physically when she moans suddenly. The build up is agonizing and there's going to be many more months before release. He sees a lot of cold showers in the future. Cold showers to wash off baby puke. If it was three years earlier he would've been disgraced at the set of circumstances he's in, but now he understands the difference. What it is without her. What it would be like without that family, and the wish that there could've always been more. He has lived with the nagging for long enough, even if the reality isn't as pretty as he pictured it would be.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Four days later, what feels like nine hundred calls home to her, and one ill-planned evening later Mark returns with a nearly ruined bouquet of mixed flowers and a grocery bag full of food that has been spoiling in the backseat of his car for the last five hours. Initially, he thought he should buy jewelry. They tell you that you can't go wrong with that but when he was perusing windows he discovered a hefty engagement ring and hastily bought it. It's currently hiding in his glove box and from that exact moment on he's been having heart palpitations trying to think of ways to either ditch it in the ocean without it washing ashore again or getting it on her finger without freaking her out. The damn thing has caused so much anxiety he can't help but think it was a mistake.

He tosses the bags of fresh vegetables on the counter and toes out of his shoes, grabbing a glass of water on his quest upward to find her. He holds the flowers upside down in front of his legs defeated, knowing that not only will there be no proposal now (or really in the near future) but that there will also not be a Valentine's evening because it's nearing eleven at night and he'd lay good money on her already being asleep. To his surprise, she's awake. Lying there, staring at the ceiling in an eggplant purple tee shirt and shorts so tiny he has to take a breath to make it all the way down her legs to her scrunched up toes. "Evening."

"You missed it," Addison pouts feeling rather childish for a. not realizing how much she actually wanted to spend the lover's holiday with him and b. whining about something that couldn't have been avoided because work is work.

"Most of it," he sighs and climbs onto the bed, sheets rumpled and twisted, dumping the flowers in the space between them. "For you. I got them before...I was on my way home."

"It's okay," Addison grins sleepily.

"Yeah," Mark nods and stands back up to shed his clothes. He's hungry but he can't resist a moment of simply being able to touch her, if she's receptive. "I wanted to be here earlier."

"Ok," she gets out of bed, rolling to her side and shuffles over to the dresser to retrieve his present. She laughs when she hands it to him because it's basically useless at this point but it's all she has. The bag falls into his lap and he touches the red paper apprehensively. His present is in the car and she won't be receiving it.

"The Angels?" Mark questions, holding the tickets up in the air.

"Well, we can't fly to New York every time the Yankees are playing...and I thought. I don't know. You haven't done anything...for you lately. You used to go all the time...before." And in some realm, the ever-pleasing girlfriend side perhaps, Addison cares. And wishes simultaneously that she had the ability to be more free with that. "Do you-"

"It's a good gift," he finishes for her. "I was going to...cook something. But the food sat in my car all night-"

"I already ate," Addison tells him even though she hasn't. It's one step forward and two back. If she was starving she would have ambled to a lower level and foraged. As it was sleep was a more pressing issue. She flops onto the bed again, back protesting from all the lazy positions she's been in lately. "Mark," she begins softly. "I need to apologize about the hospital. I shut down and I'm sorry. I should have called you and I didn't because I was scared."

"It's not a big deal," he flips nonchalantly. It's really over in his mind. He's too concerned with the here and now to worry about anything that happened nearly two weeks ago.

"It is. To me."

"I'm not who you wanted, I get it Addison," Mark replies, still not fazed. There are no chinks in his armor from this.

"That's not what-"

"I'm not always going to be the person you want-"

"I should want you-" she interrupts again, not liking the turns this is taking. All she desired was to clear the conscious that she has had too much time with lately. The damn thing is killing her day in and day out.

"They aren't mine. I understand." He rolls onto his side, facing away from her, eyes pressing closed.

"Mark," Addison stresses, feeling the anxiety begin to creep back in, the tension claw it's way in through the window panes. She reaches out and places a warm hand on his bare shoulder, trying to coax the wayward four year old of the corner. "I didn't want anyone. It wasn't about me...wanting anything. I wasn't...thinking."

"Yeah," he grunts.

"I was focused on...an outcome. It had nothing to do with you," she finishes realizing how awful that sounds, no matter how truthful. "I was thinking like a doctor."

"You handled it," he replies harshly, words betraying his unspoken vow to not give two licks about what occurred that day.

"As a doctor, yes I handled it. As your...whatever we are, I was wrong. And I'm sorry I made that mistake. I'm more sorry than you can possibly imagine Mark. Can you at least roll over and look at me?" He shifts onto his back, reaching a semi-agreement. As a last resort she grabs his fingers and scoots closer, placing his palm against her stomach. "They're awake," she informs him softly. "They wake each other up which means we are definitely not going to be sleeping after they are born."

He can't stop the smile that awakens in the dim light of the yellow room. It's uncontrollable really. He finds it amazing that she always, though she may not admit it or follow through, knows what he needs. His other hand finds the too small curve and rubs circles over the last place he felt a kick. Taking his time, he draws patterns and shapes, not pulling back until she looks like she wants to run away and cry in the bathroom. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she replies, snuggling into his chest.

"Can I..." his hands drift back to where they were before, pulling her back against his chest, his head pressing a kiss to the delicate skin just below her jaw. "Just for tonight?"

"Okay," she agrees, sleep clouding her judgment.

Mark grins against her hair, taking in its light scent. "Light is still on."

"I don't want to move," Addison replies, her legs beginning to work their way towards his, to tangle their bodies.

"Me either." Mark's too afraid to back away and hit the light switch. For now he is content, lively twins settled under his hands, feeling them for the first time longer than it takes her to get him away. It's a golden opportunity and not one he is willing to sacrifice.

"Mom is good for us," Addison concedes, eyes closed, fists tightened around her pillow, leaving him be no matter how much it drives her crazy.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Mark mumbles, patiently bending up to watch her face. "Because she wants to come back to help when they are born."

Her sigh doesn't go unnoticed. Neither does the fraction of an inch that she purposefully puts between them ten seconds later.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	38. Brandskar

A/N: Thank you Hannah!

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
Brandskär  
- September Malevolence  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark was a little skeptical about their first meeting with Dr. Everly after Addison being put on bedrest, but he was assured then as he is now that she won't try and skip off, or demand that they go out grocery shopping on the way home. He feels safer, less agitated, when she is still. Even if being silent comes hand in hand, as it often does. Some days he tries to engage her in conversation, finding that persistence can pay off, but other days he's too exhausted to get out of his shoes before he passes out on the mattress. Today, is another extreme.

The doctor's appointment went as it always did, Addison sat stiffly and did as she was instructed, not asking questions, not paying any attention. And Mark was overly involved, wanting answers to things he already knows, and wondering how much longer they can hold out before she will inevitably deliver. He needed to know who would be there, what would happen exactly, so he could visualize it instead of flying by the whim that he's enjoyed most of his life.

That's the thing about Addison. She makes him want to plan ahead, to look forward. She always has. Even when she wasn't his. Even when they are at each other's throats.

Today, however, he is having a hard time caring one way or another. He drops his coat by the door and pulls his feet toward the kitchen, searching for the alcohol. He doesn't call upstairs to let her know not to be alarmed by the sound of the front door opening, and he doesn't attend to her first. Instead, he searches through cupboards frantically until he happens upon an old bottle of scotch that's only half full, looking like something that Derek once owned. It only burns him more to think that Addison kept it from him so he neglects the glasses and takes an unusually long pull straight from the bottle.

Once it roars through his throat he takes another, and another, before ambling toward the couch and waiting for it to kick in.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Sam?" Addison questions her phone, even though the caller ID said Naomi.

"Yeah, hey, is Mark at home?"

"I don't know," she replies, adjusting the pillow behind her constantly aching back. She thinks it's only aided by not having moved in the last two weeks.

"You don't know?"

"It's not like I can go check. I heard the door, then again, I guess I could be getting robbed right now."

"I get the point. Can- are you allowed to go see?" He doesn't know the specifics, just that she isn't coming back to work for awhile and that if Mark calls him freaking out that he shouldn't be surprised. Naomi rehearsed a calming speech for him to give to both parties in the event it occurs.

"I guess," Addison agrees, knowing though that today she hasn't been exactly in top form. Her head is killing her for no reason, and the nausea seems to be lingering just behind every shift she makes. She carefully disentangles her legs from the sheets, setting one wobbly limb down after another and then breathes into her phone once she is vertical. "Why am I going downstairs Sam?"

"Mark...had a bad day."

"Mark had a bad day? Bad day how? Did someone die?"

"No," Sam tells her, listening as she wanders through the house. "Pierce was here, it got messy Addison. Just make sure he is okay for us, and...call me if you need me."

"Bye," she whispers, creeping down the stairs, hands clutched to the railing. "Mark?"

"You shouldn't be down here," he says sternly, turning back to the alcohol on the coffee table.

"Well, it's too late for that lecture so spare me. What happened?" She drifts to the couch, keeping her distance, and tucks herself into the corner, a throw pillow covering her stomach.

"Nothing."

"Nothing has you drinking to get drunk?"

"Yup," he nods and takes another quick shot in his mouth before Addison can lean forward and snag the bottle. "Hey!"

"Mark," she warns him, settling the bottle on the end table behind her. "Talk to me."

"There isn't anything to say, there's never anything to say to you Addison." With that he stands, marches toward the beach, and slams the door on the way out, letting the redhead deal with the reverberating glass panels that threaten to break under the pressure.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

She gives him ten minutes alone with the waves crashing to clear his head. Talking is not their strong suit, and when it is, it's simply because one or the other blurts something out. They keep it in until it's volatile, waiting for the explosion. If nothing else, she decides standing again, it will distract her.

"Shouldn't be out here," Mark murmurs as she collapses next to him on the deck.

"I know where I should and should not be," Addison counters, lying back against the deck, stomach in the air blocking her view of anything. She takes in the fuzzy clouds, sun just barely peaking through. "What happened with Pierce?"

He'd ask how she knows but that'd be foolish. The entire office saw their showdown and no doubt called to give her a heads up. "Nothing."

"Mark-"

"Derek would have been a good dad," he says softly after a few minutes.

"What?" Addison jumps back, surprised at the lack of segue between their conversations.

He kicks at the sand for a moment before doing what he does best- hurting people. "I'm not cut out for this."

He watches her for a few moments before gathering up the gall to take a walk down the beach alone.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Part of her wants to rush off after him, ask him where he thinks he gets off, but another part of her is relieved to see him go. She can breathe for the first time in weeks, and she can't help but think the two actions are interlocked. Grabbing a glass of water, and the mail she shuffles back to the couch and settles in for the night.

The contractions start at about seven and he's not back. Fortunately, they aren't hard or persistent. Just dull waves trying to prepare her for the real thing. In an hour they are gone and she pushes herself upstairs toward the bedroom, tired for no reason. But by the time she hits the sheets her mind is wide awake, wondering where he could be. Out drinking presumably, alone hopefully.

The reason she keeps herself so guarded, so closed off, it's for these instances. Because old Addison couldn't handle this, being left repeatedly by the man she questionably loves. She was too broken, too beaten, too bruised by her life's events. But new Addison barely feels a thing. She almost misses the panic that would be setting in about now, nearly desires to feel that kind of hurt once more in the midst of the blackness that has swept her up.

She takes a deep breath as another set of contractions comes along. It's going to be a long night.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Before wandering off like an idiot he managed to forget that there is nothing in his old house, save the stupid sleeping bag. Now he's too ashamed and alternately pride filled to go back and retrieve a pillow or a toothbrush so he slumps onto the hardwood floor and lets the thoughts pound along.

It isn't that he doesn't care about her, or the twins. It's possibly that he cares too much. He's out on a branch and for the first time its terrifying. As they wind down closer to her due date, as the lack of preparedness rears its head, he gets progressively more worried. And he's not the pressure type of guy, not in his personal life anyway. Clean cuts, that's his motto. Easy come, easy go.

And they've made progress, there's been steps forward, he acknowledges that much but they are too few and too small. Time has come, and they haven't pulled out a win. But what scares him the most is losing any one of them, Pierce's children included. That's why he freaked out a little today, screaming at a man who is probably trying his hardest, telling him Pierce he's not good enough when Mark's not even sure he'd be better. He just knows it doesn't feel right, any of it.

So he ran.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Mark, open the door!" Sam yells through the other side of the wood. It pulls back instantly, and Mark steps outside into the porch light. "Addison sent me to check on you."

"How nice," he grunts.

"Well, it's not like she's allowed to move. Not exactly a fair fight," Sam allows and leans back against the side of the house. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," Mark replies.

"Scared?" Sam smirks knowingly, changing the subject.

"Out of my mind."

"It gets better," Sam tells him.

"Yeah but you had Naomi," Mark remembers. He wasn't really around much for Maya but they were at least married and excited about bringing a child into the world.

"And you have Addison," Sam nods.

"Sure," Mark complies. She's there physically, but only time will tell how big of a help she will actually be.

"So," Sam clears his throat uncomfortably, not wanting to get into anything about Addison or the late, great Derek Shepherd. "Should I tell her you are alive and staying here tonight or are you headed back any time soon?"

"I should go back," Mark asserts. It's the right thing to do, for all of them. Make peace, keep it stress free. He's supposed to be supportive, even if he is entitled to a heart attack every now and again.

"I'll give you a ride."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

He scuffles into the entryway debating whether or not to sleep it out on the couch. She's more than likely upset, understandably so, and he doesn't have the energy for another "discussion". But the curiosity wins out and he trudges up the stairs reluctantly to find her awake and still. "Hey."

"Welcome home," Addison smarts off, dropping her book on the nightstand. It's her fifth of the week and her eyes are tired of reading.

He slips out of his jeans, and throws his shirt toward the corner of the room, headed toward the bathroom for a quick shower to revive his mentality. When he emerges from the steam he decides to take a different approach, one they've never really used before. "Addison, you up?"

"Yeah," she admits, staring up at the ceiling. "Oh-" she gasps as she takes a hard kick to the ribs. He stares at her waiting and she simply rolls her eyes.

"This afternoon," he begins, taking a seat on the bed, "Pierce was there picking up Ellie, and I approached him, and things were said, and then I came home. I didn't mean to walk out, I just needed space."

Addison purses her lips confused. He's calm and reflective instead of agitated and defensive. "Okay."

"I would really like to revisit the conversation we were having before."

"I know," she nods.

"If I didn't think we could do it, I wouldn't ask." Alright, maybe he would, but that's beside the point. She's receptive and momentarily open so he has to go for it.

"I'm not a mother," Addison states sadly, and she doesn't feel like she's about to be one. Not even an inch of her feels maternal, and she has tried to conjure up something, spent a few minutes with her hands over her stomach, relishing in the kicks but there's nothing. It's as if they belong to another person out there in the vast world of California.

"And I'm not father material, but we could be, and even if we aren't- what we are, it works for them. We did good stuff."

"I yelled at them."

"It happens."

"I'm going to be a horrible parent," Addison says, immediately regretting the pity party she is inciting.

Mark watches her insecurities boil just under the surface. Granted, he's had his questions about her lately but he'd never say she was going to be horrible. Maybe challenged is what he would call it. "No, Addison, you won't be."

She gulps down the emotions patiently, and then rolls her head to the side so she can see him. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

He's about to ask for clarity on what she means by 'any of this' but his pager sounds, and he's off to the hospital, kissing her cheek, leaving her to the tears that will surely claim her face as soon as the car engine rumbles to life outside.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I want to move," Addison tells him plainly the next evening, as they share Chinese food in bed, the cartons littering the sheets, discarded chopsticks on the bedside table.

"Now is not a good time."

"It is," she argues. "I can pack things without moving around too much and-and I can label boxes."

"No," Mark sighs and tries to divert her. "How have you been today?"

"Fine," Addison replies. "I want to move into your house."

"My house?" Mark asks, snagging an egg roll out of the box by his crossed feet.

"It's not far," she tells him. She's given it a lot of thought and she needs out of this place. This house with memories and nightmares. It doesn't feel appropriate any longer.

"Regardless," Mark begins. "Maybe after," he gestures to her stomach and fights the urge to slap some common sense into her head. She's hormonal and crazy and he knows slightly better.

"Sam can help and Nae-"

"Addison, no."

"Fine," she huffs and heads for the bathroom to escape him. The door slams victoriously as she sinks against the counter, upset for reasons unknown to ever her, the feeling of being caged up too much to bare any longer. She needs a change of scenery.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Thank you...for meeting with me," Mark begins, desk chair rocking with his nervous feet.

"It's probably against my better judgment," Pierce admits, "But my daughter seems to think you are an okay guy."

"I am," Mark assures him. "Well, I try to be." He stares at his pseudo brother in-law nervously, hoping the apology can go unsaid. "I was wondering when you were moving."

"Next weekend," Pierce confirms, toying with the handle of his black briefcase. He's got a lunch in an hour but Mark is nothing if not persistent he's learned, and that's how he landed himself back at Oceanside this morning.

"Addison wants custody," Mark blurts out suddenly.

"What?" Pierce questions, legs trying to rise of their own accord.

"She's on bed rest, and she can't be here. Look I don't want to be doing this anymore than you do," Mark smirks. "I'm just the messenger."

"I thought-"

"She changed her mind," Mark cuts him off easily. "She wants you to swing by the house, if you can, to talk tonight."

"Why the sudden change?" Pierce asks skeptically.

Mark shrugs convincingly. "Don't know. She's hormonal, and I didn't want to cause a meltdown so I said I would ask. It's all I can do. So, yes or no for tonight?"

"These are my children," Pierce says harshly.

"I'm sure she's aware of that," Mark answers. "Six sound good? I'll grab dinner on my way out for us all."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

There's a small part of her that thinks maybe this is warranting a call to Dr. Everly, but she also reasons that she is one of the world's most sought after doctors and she can handle it just fine on her own. So she relaxes her head against the lid of the toilet and waits for the next heave. When she's certain she's done she leans back against the wall, relishing in the cool tile under her bare legs, and takes a deep breath wishing it would all just go away.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison?" Mark perks up, looking into the bathroom, after discovering her missing on his daily trip home for lunch.

Things have been tense, tempers high, and it's mostly silent around these parts but he still finds himself unable to stop caring about her well being. No matter how infuriating she is, no matter how many times she delays his plans and screws up everything, he always needs what's best for her and the twins to happen. That's why seeing her curled up on the floor is slightly disconcerting. He nudges her shoulder with his foot before dropping to the ground when her eyes begin to flutter open. He checks her pulse, makes sure her feet aren't huge balls of puff and then hoists her up into his arms without a word. Once he's got her situated on the bed he discovers the courage. "What happened?"

"Nothing," she whispers and curls around his body to sleep more soundly.

"You need to tell me if something is wrong, I can't guess all the time."

"I know," she says softly and then ushers him back against the headboard for a quick nap in between  
patients.

Mark closes his eyes designing a new plan that somehow involves pulling off this heist without Addison knowing first. He doesn't imagine the ambush is going to go well.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Ugh!" Addison screams upstairs in frustration before giving in and heading for the annoying doorbell downstairs that will not let up. She pulls it back angrily and sputters, "P-Pierce."

"Addison," he replies, as Ellie comes flying out from behind his legs and attaches herself to her aunt.

"Hello Ellie," Addison grins. "What are you doing-"

"Baby! I'm home!" Mark yells, attempting to break up their party. He drops the bags of food on the counter hastily and hightails it for the living room. "Hey you," Mark smiles, reaching out for Ellie and swinging her into the air as she squeals. He hugs her tightly, relishing in the human contact he isn't really getting out of Addison lately. She's cold when he needs warm, sealed off when he needs just the tiniest of inclinations to keep pressing forward.

"Pierce," Addison says slowly, "Would you give us a minute?"

"Sure," he agrees, dragging his eldest daughter along behind him, and plucking Kennedy out of her carrier when she begins to wail, a seeming side effect of being in this house.

"What is going on?"

"Don't get mad," Mark says instantly.

"What would I be getting mad about?"

"Don't yell," he instructs.

"Why would I be yelling?" she challenges.

"I told Pierce you wanted custody," Mark laments and braces for impact.

"What!" she screeches, her throat constricting violently against the betrayal.

"I said don't yell," he says quietly, leading her by the elbow toward the stairs. "He agreed to meet with you...or us, I think he's serious about this Addison."

"I was serious before-"

"I understand that."

"Really? Because it seems to me that you can't remember-"

"I need this, alright? I don't know why, but I do. I can't fucking explain it to you and I'm tired of trying. They need to not be under his supervision and I am aware that you don't think we are any better but at least we can make sure that their hair gets brushed and that they make it to school-"

"I'm under house arrest," Addison hisses, fingers itching for something to throw. "I can't do anything for anyone."

"I'll handle it. All of it."

"This is absolutely your worst idea to date." She throws her arms above her head in resignation. He's going to do as he pleases anyway.

"Quite possibly," Mark agrees, rubbing her back with his free hand. "Please Addie, please."

"You're going to leave me with a screaming five month old all day while you play at work?"

"No," he shakes his head.

"Did you think this through at all?" Addison seethes, leaning against the banister.

"Kind of. Follow my lead?"

"I reserve the right to stop speaking with you," she adds on, as they walk forward.

"Noted."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison watches Ellie play with a small doll patiently while Mark and Pierce hammer out the details. Los Angeles during the week, San Francisco most weekends. Holidays split up, occasional visits, summer breaks. She'll give it to him, as penance for her crimes, for stealing the only chance he'd ever have at their child. There's no stopping the rolling wheel, it doesn't matter how unhappy she is with all of this.

"Addison?" Mark asks and she glares at him, but takes his help in assisting her off the floor she was stuck on. "Come look this over?"

She reads through the preliminary draft with great disinterest. She's not the lawyer in the room and frankly the hereinafters, exclusions, and loopholes put her to sleep. Mark gets up on page two to go tend to the crying baby in the other room.

"I'm sorry about...that night," Pierce tells her. "I shouldn't- I wasn't thinking clearly," he says referring to their awkward evening of grief and inappropriate touching.

"It's fine," she replies even though it's not.

"I wish I was better for them...Reagan was an amazing mother."

"I'm sure she was," Addison nods. She's got no clue, and there's no point in arguing.

"You're okay with all of this?" Pierce asks a few minutes later.

"I'm trying to do what's best for them," Addison decides. "I think...this is what she would want."

"Thank you," he gulps unsteadily. "Maybe we can revisit-"

"No," Addison declines. "This is it. If we go forward, from here on out this is where they belong. You have every right to change your mind in the next few days but after that- I won't jerk them around Pierce, they've been through enough. They need something stable."

"I agree," he says mournfully. It all could have been so different just a few short months ago. "I'll have my lawyer look over this, and I'll think on it, get back to you."

Addison leaves the irony about a lawyer needing a lawyer unsaid and stands up, putting out a hand and receiving a strong hug.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Thank you," Mark whispers in her ear, after they've both crawled into bed.

"I hate you," she cries, tears staining her pillow, lungs trying to breathe in normally.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The first thing Mark hears are whimpers, low and short, coming from the other side of the room. His heart reacts first, surging to life, as his fingers fumble with the cord on the bedside lamp next to him. "Addison?" he murmurs, in case it's just another dream. He rolls over to find her wide awake. "It's time?"

"Something is wrong," she tells him assuredly, as another wave of pain forces her to curl her toes and hunch back into the fetal position.

"Something is wrong...like labor or-"

"No, you need to call 911." Her voice is calm, betraying her body, making Mark question everything and waste time.

"Well, if it just hurts Addison, I can drive you in. Or I can call Naomi-"

"Or," she slams her teeth together suddenly, "you can call for an ambulance."

"I can get you there, can you walk? Do I need to carry you?" He stumbles to the ground, straightening out his boxers and reaching for a spare shirt thrown haphazardly over the chair.

"Call the damn ambulance Mark," she orders, in a tone that makes him snap to. "Tell them I have intense abdominal pain and..." she stops angrily as he takes her hand, encouraging her to breathe through the impossible anguish. "And my water broke-"

He reaches for her legs, hidden under the blankets. "Are you dilated?" He pulls back the sheets to find another pool of blood, and his head tells him that they have got to stop doing things her way.

"What?" Addison asks his face frightening her, hoping against all odds that this will be an uncomplicated, fast labor.

"Where's a phone?"

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"What's happening!" Mark yells anxiously at Charlotte King, pacing the waiting room floor after being kicked out of the trauma bay.

"My team thinks there's a placental abruption, we won't know how bad until we get in there."

"In there," Mark stumbles.

"It's time," Charlotte pats his shoulder. "Get suited up Sloan."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Mark," Naomi orders, staring at the tall man pasted to the window in front of him. "Mark."

"What?" he replies, not turning around to look at her, instead choosing to focus on the moving lips of the many doctors in the room before him.

"She's alright."

"You don't know that."

"I have faith," Naomi corrects.

"Maybe you should go in there," he says softly, motioning toward the operating room. "She'd want you." And she hates him, it's the least he could do, considering the night's events.

"No, she'd want you," Naomi smiles. "That's where you need to be. And I'm here when you are done. We'll handle it all together, no matter what, okay?"

Mark tries to roll his eyes at her motherly pep-talk but fails, wanting the reassurance more than he'll admit. Possibly broken babies and life threatening problems with the woman he loves are kind of pushing his threshold today. "Yeah."

"You better get in there before it's over," she smiles and gives him a quick nudge before hustling up to the gallery, the very same one she watched a close friend and patient die in a few months before. Nature likes to mock them.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

He's vaguely aware of the day, February 27th, Derek's birthday, as he stumbles into the OR. They'll be born today, of that there is no doubt. He's scuttles along slowly, knowing they've begun prepping her without him but not okay with letting her be in there all alone, even if she is knocked out. Part of him is too terrified to take another step forward, to watch them rip her apart, and yet another section is excited. They've been a long time coming, even if they are early and he can only hope against all odds that they come out healthy.

His hands dry, red scrubs intact, he joins them and looks down until he finds the head of the table. He wishes she were conscious. He wants this to be the thing that slams her into motherhood heart first, needs for her to not feel robbed of the experience. He rationalizes that she understands the circumstances, and the logic behind the medical procedure but he isn't sure that Addison the mother (when and if she ever comes into play) will be alright with never having heard their first breaths, their first cries. Never having witnessed their first kicks and flails.

Maybe he can log it well enough in his memory to share if she is ever inclined to ask.

"I'll have them out shortly Dr. Sloan," the young woman, younger than both he and Addison, tells him confidently. He doesn't know who she is, her background, her medical training, and yet here she is holding his future in her possibly unskilled hands. He nods, head feeling like lead, and watches the first of two be successfully "birthed". Then the second, and they are whisked away, the murmurings not low enough so that he doesn't hear. They didn't cry or flail, and not having Addison's capable mind being the one that is preparing to treat them scares him more than the rest of it.

"I've got a while here, but she's stable," the woman perks up again, without looking at him. "You're free to check on them at any point. Dr. King says you two are important."

If he had the guts he'd look over and make sure she's doing her job right, but it's all been a quick blur, and the little incubators are gone with the unfortunately sick children. He's stuck like cement so he swallows the thickness in his throat and mumbles back, "I need to stay with her."

He takes to stroking her soft hair, the color apparently not inherited by the twins, when they order another bag of blood hung up.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Full placental abruption," Charlotte announces, dropping a chart on his lap, as he watches nurses fuss over the two little girls he already adores. "Montgomery goes all out."

"Yeah," Mark nods, sifting through the pages. "She awake yet?"

"No, she'll be coming out of anesthesia soon though, I'll have them page you."

"How are they?" he asks, pointing to the separate incubators.

"Could be better," Charlotte admits, having paid closer attention than she'd let on. "They have names?" she asks before continuing, having found that people don't really appreciate the alphabetical labeling system of their children. "Baby A, born first, weighs only 3 pounds and 5 ounces. Baby B 3 pounds, 1 ounce. They're pretty underweight Sloan."

Mark closes his eyes slowly. He saw it coming, but he didn't think they'd be this small, little veins poking out, eyes taped shut. He's pretty sure he could hold one in his open palm.

"They're are having difficulties breathing among other things," she explains as he stares at all the tubes. "Dr. Sloan," Charlotte clears her throat.

"Yeah," he mumbles.

"You should...maybe prepare yourself for the possibility that...they may not make it."

His head turns in confusion toward the short blonde in the doorway. Surely they aren't that bad. "Dr. King-"

"We're doing everything we can. I'm sorry," Charlotte nods, and wanders off to find something less wrecking to deal with.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Those are not Mark's children," Cooper observes immediately, taking a punch to the side from Violet.

"No," Pete agrees, looking toward Sam and Naomi for an answer. If they had to rush down here at one in the morning to stare at sick babies then he wants to be clued in.

"They aren't Mark's," Naomi reluctantly divulges. "Do not ask Addison," she orders.

"Derek," Violet breathes out, remembering that delicious hair anywhere.

"No one says anything to her...or Mark, it's a sore subject," Naomi demands again protectively.

"I bet," Violet snorts.

"Her ex-husband?" Cooper asks.

"Dead ex-husband," Pete clarifies and then steps closer toward the glass.

"Man," Cooper breathes out slowly.

"I thought...but they were divorced," Sam adds in, completely confused, and upset that Naomi didn't tell him.

"Stuff happens," Violet says, pointing at both of them.

"But she's with Mark now," Sam says, talking to himself. "You think he's just there because-"

"No," Naomi cuts him off. "He wants to be with her."

"What a mess," Cooper exclaims, leaning against the wall sleepily.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison...God, would you just say something. Anything," Mark mumbles, mostly to himself, his hands scrubbing over his face. But she stares forward wordlessly, tears clinging to her eyelashes, threatening to pour over at any moment.

"Hey," Naomi greets softly, joining them after making Charlotte clear everyone so they could go visit her new god-daughters. She pats Addison's leg gently as she slumps onto the mattress, forcing herself into the redhead's personal space.

"Hey," Mark sighs dejectedly. He'd really like some sort of response so he could go check and worry over the girls again. Six hours and counting (including the horrifying surgery experience) and there's been nothing but sadness out of the person next to him. No words, no screaming, no questions.

Naomi pulls down the blanket Addison has a death grip on and chuckles, trying to ease the tension. "You realize you are the woman the rest of us hate? Pre-baby weight within the first few weeks is unfair. You remember me with Maya..." she trails off sensing everyone in the room is uninterested and somewhere else but still needing to fill the space with noise. It's too much to simply be quiet.

Addison swallows roughly, coming to terms with the last twenty-four hours. She's empty, literally and metaphorically. She has nothing to offer the situation and her children are in capable hands that she can't oversee or complain about. Stuck, head pounding with anticipation, numbing gradually wearing off, pain slowly trying to seep in, she waits. Waits for someone to say something real, to stop dancing around the issues at hand. She's not incompetent or unaware and right now all she has are worse case scenarios floating through her mind and no one stroking her palm supportively because they are all afraid she's going to lash out when all she actually wants to do is curl into a ball and cry.

Naomi leaves again, saying something about it getting late/early, and needing to pick Maya up and get her to school but if you asked either of the people left they wouldn't be able to repeat it thirty seconds later.

"Addison," Mark grunts again, mindful to stay away from her. "Do you need anything? Are you in pain?"

When she doesn't answer he storms out of the room unhelpfully, letting the door latch loudly as he goes.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"She's been through a lot Mark, physically and emotionally," Naomi tells him, as he walks her to the parking lot.

"I know," he sighs loudly, the need for sleep beginning to set in. "I want to know what she's thinking, she won't talk."

"Having been through the experience of childbirth, she's probably all over the place. It was traumatic, we're fortunate she...we're just fortunate that it went well."

"Yeah," he agrees as her car keys jingle in hand, nurses and doctors headed toward the hospital to switch shifts. Lonely family members and friends lining the sidewalk for visiting hours.

"I have to get Maya, but you need to be there for her. No losing your cool, no running out," her voice picks up accusing him of the other night. "Be there for when she needs you, because she will."

"They look like Derek," he chokes out as she begins to climb into her vehicle.

Naomi reaches out and squeezes Mark's hand tightly. She, among the many, continuously forgets how difficult this is for him. He's good at putting up a front. She scrambles for something to say and settles on a sad frown before pulling away and wishing him luck. It would seem they could all use a bit more of that today.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Violet saunters into the room hesitantly. Certainly, she and Addison are not the best of friends, hell they haven't much gotten off on the right foot, but she was requested so she slips into a chair and stares at the redhead waiting. "Sam said you wanted-"

"I don't feel anything," Addison says suddenly, her first words of the day.

"I'd say that's a good thing considering," Violet jokes.

"Not physically," Addison corrects, because the numbness is beginning to slowly give way to a pain that even the drugs they have her on can't quite block out. "I-I don't feel anything."

"Okay," Violet assesses. "It's been a long night, maybe some rest-"

"I don't feel like a mother," Addison laughs cynically. "I just...feel empty."

"Why do you think that is?" Violet asks, scooting a little closer, enthralled with being able to examine this woman.

"I don't know."

"I think you do," Violet presses further.

"What if they die?" Addison asks quietly. "What if...it happens all the time."

"Do you think you'd feel more...attuned if they were perfectly healthy?"

"I don't know, maybe," Addison sighs. She still hasn't been able to hear anything concrete on how they are doing, only that they are sick enough to warrant staying put. "I always wanted to be a mother. I always- with Derek, and Mark- I couldn't."

"Do you regret this?" Violet asks carefully.

"Yes," she answers quickly, blowing Violet back. She thought she'd get the standard answer of how Addison still loves them but doesn't feel anything but instead she got honesty. "I'd do it differently- I wasn't in a good...place, I'm not in a good place."

Violet bites her lip not knowing how far to push, when the tears begin to fall she decides it's time to back the heck off. Addison is not a patient, she's a co-worker, and one that Violet doesn't know that well yet. "It's okay," she offers sheepishly.

"Not-okay," Addison replies, the back of her hands brushing her cheeks. "I don't want them! That's not okay."

"I think," Violet grabs one of her shaky hands, "if you get some rest, you may feel differently."

"I thought," Addison cries, "if- when they were here, I would feel something finally. I want to feel again."

Of course Mark chooses that exact moment to shuffle through the door, looking like someone kicked his dog. Violet gathers her things and excuses herself to let them deal with it. Surely, he is better equipped to handle her craziness.

"Hey, hey," Mark says soothingly, guiding her back against the pillows gently. He takes the fraction of an inch of mattress next to her and waits it out. He brushes her knotted hair back, securing it poorly with a hair tie from the bag by his feet (the same one he hurriedly packed weeks ago and managed to remember this trip), so it stays out of her way. She squirms around uncomfortably until she can settle her head against his shoulder, urging him to lie down with her. When he complies the sobs turn to sniffles, eyes drifting shut slowly. She's exhausted and run ragged, and he knows she gets more emotional when that happens. Same goes for him.

"I'm sorry," Addison squeaks through her tired voice. "I'm sorry Mark."

"Not a thing," he assures her, hand slipping inside her flimsy gown and rubbing the soft skin of her back.

"You're too good for me," she whispers drowsily a few minutes later. Mark's face contorts itself into a small smile, echoing her sentiments, relishing with pride. He never thought the day would come where he would be good for her, let alone too good.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Montgomery," Charlotte screeches, waking both partners in the bed. "Morning," Charlotte smiles.

"Hrmph," Mark groans, feeling Addison begin to stir.

"I have good news and bad news," Charlotte continues undaunted.

"Okay." Mark's heartbeat nearly leaps through his chest in worry.

"Good news is they're both off the vents now, and I don't foresee any problems there. Bad news is Montgomery spiked a post-op fever of 103, nice work, so I'd like to keep her in here a little longer, as a precautionary measure." Charlotte will not have the hooligans from Oceanside on her ass because her star surgeon develops an infection.

Mark nods slowly, Addison still not really awake next to him. "Is she-"

"She'll make a full recovery Sloan, just a precaution."

"And they-"

"Are fighters," Charlotte says with pride. "They are definitely fighters."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Hear that?" Mark whispers after Charlotte leaves them a few leaflets from charts to fawn over. He'd reach down for one but then they'd both have to move.

"Yeah," Addison yawns, carefully adjusting herself. Once she's settled she takes the opportunity, "I'm sorry about earlier-"

"No apologies," Mark stops her. "It's hard."

"It is," Addison nods, noting that Violet was dead wrong, and she still can't drudge up any maternal instincts.

Mark leans forward grabbing the pages and begins to read them thoroughly. It's still touch-and-go but they are looking better. He gives each scribbled outline to Addison as he finishes, letting her devour the stats and changes.

As she reads through the charts of Baby A and Baby B she feels a distinct tickle of something new in her stomach. The butterflies of guilt swarm and swoop. She didn't do her job correctly, they're too little, too sick. And now she's stuck in a bed for the foreseeable future. She inhales loudly and decides to stop reading, it was better to not know before.

"They'll be alright," Mark assures her once he's done. It is their only option. No one will survive another death.

"Yeah," Addison agrees, closing her eyes tight, sealing herself off once again.

He slides from the bed expertly, searching for his shoes. He needs to go see them. It's been four hours since he last checked and major developments have arisen. He brushes a quick kiss to her temple and weighs the outcome of saying it before giving in, "I love you."

"Love you too."

And with that, a huge smile for having heard it the first real time, and a quick bounce in his step, Mark exits the room to go check on his other girls.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	39. Secondary doubts I've found myself in

A/N: Of course the second I say I am taking a break from writing I get bombarded with ideas and have to GO! I feel like this is coming to a close...soonish, though my idea of an outline has ended up with 38 chapters so far so we'll see. Some creative licence taken with the medicine in this chapter, I tried to be as accurate as my searching allowed me to be though. And I think you all may like this one...hopefully. Onward-

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
Falling from my mouth, secondary doubts I've found myself in  
Can't seem to look you in the eye  
And I hope you can see  
I'm more than this, this heap at your feet  
- Richard Walters, "Elephant In the Room"  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Dr. Sloan?" A voice behind him squeaks, causing him to bolt out of the chair he was occupying.

Mark clears his throat, trying to appear alert, "Yes?"

"I need..." the nurse trails off, pointing at one of the two incubators he has been staring at.

"Right," Mark nods, moving out of her way, so she can check and monitor the little chest that he's spent the better portion of the day watching bounce up and down weakly. He opts for the doorway, trying to appear casual when it feels like his stomach is in a knot. Addison knows babies. He knows noses and stomachs and burns. The click of her nervous pen makes a tingle run down his spine and he'd ask her to stop but he's too terrified to open his mouth, lest she make a major mistake somehow. Instead he notes the smooth strokes she chooses, not wanting to read the actual scratches, and desiring nothing more at the same time. Ignorance is a tricky bastard.

The nurse jots a few more things down, well aware of who these children belong to, fortunate enough to have worked with Dr. Montgomery twice over the last year. She jives toward the door but he doesn't inch away, he holds his ground. "If you have questions I can send in Dr.-"

"I don't know what to tell her," Mark admits suddenly, overwhelmed with the reality, not wanting to resort to the usual jackass tendencies he relies on in these situations. "What would you say? Based on this," he motions wildly toward the twins. "What would you say to her?"

The nurse looks down, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulder in a scrambled manner, not brushed this morning. On one hand Dr. Montgomery is a professional, she'd want to know exactly what is wrong, on the other hand she's the patient. A recovering patient who could do well without any added stresses. She takes a deep breath, "Tell her...they're alive. They're breathing," she says softly pointing back at the dimmed room.

He nods and wiggles toward the solo rocking chair in the room. The blanket cast over the back slaps the wood with each roll forward, his knees cracking as he plugs away. Every motion only brings him closer to the brink of insanity. He's not sure if Addison wants every update, every hour. Or if once was enough. She seemed disinterested, but he'd be willing to wager that, at the time, it may have been an unfair assessment, given the preceeding events.

One of his hand falls hesitantly over the plastic separating Baby A and himself after he's had enough rocking. "You are alive."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"How much longer?" Addison demands, glaring at her new best friend. A short woman, black hair that looks like it went through a meat grinder, fingers too polished to be working long hours.

The nurse glowers in return and then forces her to sit up carefully, noticing the grimace that occurs when it happens. "If it hurts-"

"I don't need any more pain medication. What I need is to get out of this bed."

"Not yet," the woman declares and places her clipboard down hastily next to Addison's blanketed legs.

"I need to be up, walking around," Addison argues, struggling for attention.

"Take it up with Dr. King."

"I did," Addison retorts, reclining once again, lids heavy with the exhaustion she won't allow herself to succumb to. Her new mission is to be walking down the hall by dinner. Perhaps lofty, but it will get her home faster, get her out of this bed of gloom and doom and back to the comforting disaster she's come to rely on.

"Not my problem," the nurse answers and gladly accepts the visitors whose faces are covered with pink balloons and vibrant flowers.

Addison can't help but stare as her ragtag group of co-workers piles into the room, new surprises in everyone's hand, ready to award her. She deserves none of it. There was no victory here today.

"Hey stranger," Naomi grins, and steals the seat next to bed before Sam can grab it. Pete remains awkwardly slumped against the wall, Violet and Cooper assigned to the couch, fingers tangled though no one is surprised. "Feeling better?"

"She was just gutted," Violet reminds them, earning herself a stern slap from Cooper.

"We decided to all take a late lunch together," Sam explains, Dell obviously charged with watching over the place. "Good looking bunch you have on your hands," he chuckles, referring to the girls they saw earlier this morning. When his redheaded friend doesn't reply he simply nods. She's quiet sometimes, a fact that all of her old friends like to forget, but they used to venture off together when it got to be too much. When Derek was being an ass, Mark was drunk, and Naomi was loud- they'd walk around the block, silent, impervious to the streets around them. He feels like he knows her better than the others sometimes, for having experienced the other end of her spectrum. Maybe it's not welcome, but then again, Addison rarely is these days.

"Got you on anything good?" Cooper laughs, pointing to the IV taped to the back of her hand.

"Not bad," Addison agrees, feeling the mask shift up a bit more comfortably. She can do this, the merry-go-round where they talk about nothing. "Any good patients?"

"It's slow," Pete chimes in across the floor.

"Kids with marbles up their noses," Cooper shrugs.

"Same old crazy," Violet offers.

The silence falls over them easily until Sam gives them the excuse of traffic and that they should get back to their non-patient filled lobby. Naomi promises to stop by again on her way home, to keep Mark in line, and the others practically skip free. She remembers a time when they were all huddled in her own living room watching Sam leave for a date, that they later crashed. She remembers playing poker with the guys, and having Pete hang out at the house to keep her company when Mark went missing. She thought they were friends, sort of, and now none of them can bear to be near her.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

When he joins Addison, she's two steps to the door and wobbling toward the couch after declaring 'operation walk' a major fail. "What do you think you are doing?"

"I need," she bites down on her lip as she sits, the incision line pulling and bending with her, "to be up Mark. I need to walk."

"You need to rest," he says too loudly, catching her immediate attention. "I'm going to put you in the bed now," he warns, preparing his arms.

"Don't touch me," Addison replies seriously.

"Stop...Addison." He holds his hands up in defeat. "You're going to do whatever you want to do...I've learned that much. But, I need you to hear me out."

"Save the speech-"

"It's selfish. You," he annunciates clearly, "are being selfish. They are fighting Addison. Clawing their way through this and you're taking chances-"

"I'm not endangering-"

"You don't know that!"

"I do," she says calmly. "I do know this. It's all I know."

"They're alive," he replies, his voice cutting in a way he didn't intend for it to a few hours ago. "And I bet they'd like a mother when they grow up so I'm going to put you back in bed and you will listen to them. They're not as good as you, but they are your doctors and if they want to take extra precautions then you let them. Do no harm."

"Don't quote the damn o-" she cuts herself off, lifted easily against his chest, head falling to a rest despite what she wants it to do.

"I like you alive," Mark says, setting her down against the rumpled sheets, his lips stealing a kiss before pulling back.

"This is hardly a life and death situation," she shoots off. He opens his mouth to speak but she stops him. "Mark?"

"Yeah?" He spins around, expecting to hear her say that she likes him alive too.

"I was doing something good."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Do we look for a new OB/GYN?" Naomi asks softly, lips moving over to her blue mug next, filled with deliciously warm coffee. It's been a long one.

"It's not like we're incredibly busy," Sam counters, taking note of the empty hallway and popping a grape into his mouth.

"But if we do-"

"We managed for months before Addison," he reminds her. "I think it would offend her, to be replaced like that."

"She's practically working out of St. Ambrose as it is," Naomi states, stealing a piece of fruit from the bag in front of her ex-husband/on-again guy.

"It's her decision. We should leave it for another time."

"Yeah," Naomi nods thoughtfully. "It was nice, to have her here."

Sam chooses to break her nostalgia with something a bit more pressing. He's been thinking it over for quite some time, and then the Derek thing happened and it wasn't right to spring on her, but he has an excuse now. "Do you want...to move in together?"

"You want to come home?" Naomi clarifies, eyes clearly confused.

"I was thinking you could move in with me. Maya loves the beach and you'd have Addison right next door, or she would have you. They will need you. Addison is bound to yell and Mark will try and run away, I figure some man-on-man defense would be for the best."

"I'll give it some thought," Naomi smiles, and then rushes from the room before the need to giggle overwhelms her. What a day indeed.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark's not sure when they can be classified as out of the woods officially but he feels like forty-eight more hours gone by is a pretty clear indication of progress. A and B, nameless, and not a subject he wants to brooch at the moment with the ghostly form that has taken over Addison, are doing well. He's got a bit of skip to his step, and a grin on his face when he finds her, hospital gown replaced by gentle black pants that fall just past her knees, and a loose green shirt that hides her already dwindling form. Her red hair is pulled back haphazardly into a quick ponytail, bangs falling over her right eye. "Ready?"

"Yeah," Addison replies, steadying herself on the bed before taking hold of the leather bag firmly and extending it out to him. The smallest of movements tend to hurt but she doesn't much mind. All in the name of recovery.

"Sign everything?"

"I was cleared by Charlotte King herself," Addison confirms, to put his mind at ease.

She refuses his hand, and takes herself into the hallway without help, Mark lagging behind.

"Come on, I want to show you something."

She knew what she was getting herself into when they got off on the fourth floor, but that doesn't make this any easier. Most of the nurses have stopped asking her if she wants to go visit the children that don't even feel like hers. Mark offered to bring a camera in and take pictures, but she wasn't having any of it. He's not going to let her leave without seeing them. She drags her feet a little, because she can, and purposefully keeps her eyes down as people begin to stare at her crocs and sloppy outfit. It's more than a little embarrassing. She's a professional here, a peer, and now she's being paraded around like a zoo exhibit.

A little nudge on the small of her back and soon they are both in the room that Mark has spent an inordinate amount of time in so far. "You can look. It's scary at first, but...you know, everything in here is to help them. You know that Addison. Look up."

She obeys, feeling herself shut down. It's automatic. They aren't what she imagined the few times she allowed herself to indulge. They aren't what she thought her and Derek's kids would look like. It's painfully obvious who their father is, and she finds herself searching for anything that looks like it could have been inherited from her side of the genes. She settles on the floor again pretty quickly, and Mark makes himself at home in the chair opposite her.

"Baby A," he clears his throat, "is here. And Baby B is over here. They-need-names." He smashes all the words together in a barely decipherable sentence and hopes she doesn't start yelling.

"Yes they do," she nods. Addison always hated when she had nameless people under her care. She'd make up names for them in the meantime, whispering gently when the rooms were vacated and left to her care.

"Maybe we could start looking, unless...you already had something picked out." His voice carries at the end, obviously hopeful.

"I can't," she shakes her head, and stumbles back out away from the monitors telling her that the very things she carried for months are actually alive, out in the world.

"Later," he encourages, watching for a few more minutes, not noticing that she has already left.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I could get Violet," Mark offers helplessly, watching Addison flip through the channels upstairs in their bedroom.

Addison laughs a little, and then gives up when it hurts. "When are we moving?"

"Now isn't a good time. I meant that."

"You house is bigger," Addison counters, not particularly looking for a fight, shying away from that line with her tone. "We can hire movers. It doesn't need to be a big production."

"Except you'll want to redecorate, and then I'll end up painting something wrong, and it will become a huge mess. Let's keep it calm, just for now." He readjusts, flipping his legs out, stretching toward the ocean.

"People paint for a living too."

"Addison," he warns.

"Mark," she teases back.

"When they come home, then I'll think about it. Until then, back off." The message wavers over the room unstably, but its affect is profound. He can almost see her retreating back into herself, a shell covering the tender portion that just poked out to say hello. He sighs loudly, frustrated with her for the hundredth time in the last seven hours of having her back home, and reaches up to brush her arm soothingly. "They looked good this morning remember," he repeats, watching her stiffen at their mention. He says the same thing every forty minutes, like a broken record, they both notice.

Addison rolls her eyes, not needing the benefit of yet another update, not wanting the guilt of knowing another second has passed wherein she's willingly neglected her children. She's busy fighting a beast with a thousand heads. They look like Derek, and they're sick, and they might die, and she feels absolutely nothing, and it's all terrifying. And then there's the added pressure of Mark being nothing short of doting and perfect while she's resigned to feeling like there is a hurricane happening inside her head. The role reversal is unkind and startling. "Don't start."

"I know you care," Mark states evenly.

"Do you?"

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The main way she was roped into this visit was simply out of resignation. She didn't want to argue, she didn't really want to be speaking, so she brushed her hair and threw on some mascara, made sure her shoes matched and found something that fit. The car ride was silent minus Mark's obscenities, remarking over how horrible Los Angeles drivers are in comparison to New York. She'd tell him they're just different, that it's all different here, but it's rather pointless. He believes what he wants and he's often times more stubborn than she is. That much she has learned.

They arrive without the fanfare of the day before, hardly anyone notices that she's present, and she gives wordless appreciation as the elevator carries them upward.

"Hello," Mark says softly, undaunted by Addison's presence behind him as he quickly shuffles forward to the children he just spent his first night without since their birth. It was torturous. He spent the duration tossing and turning, thinking about all the things that could go wrong while Addison seemingly slept peacefully next to him. Although, he thinks the narcotics that they still have her on may have played a larger role than he wants to admit.

He looks them over carefully, already aware of the fact that he'll never be able to tell them apart and they may as well tattoo one with a distinguishing mark so that he can stand a chance. Or maybe they'll get lucky and they will have completely opposite personalities. "Come here," he urges, drawing her hand to pull her closer. "We don't have to stay long if it makes you nervous, but they said it's good...they need human interaction."

"Then they should co-bed them," Addison mumbles to herself.

"They're doing a good job Addison," Mark reminds her, evidenced by both of them still being alive despite some frightening respiratory issues. Well, frightening to him. Apparently not to Addison who sees, or rather used to see, this stuff all the time.

"I don't want to be here."

"You think I don't know that?" Mark snaps instantly, then regrets it as she inches back to the open door. He closes his eyes and takes a momentary time out. Then, he tries again. He needs to reset a lot these days. "Why don't you want to be here?" The million dollar question.

"When can we go?" Addison asks, fidgeting with her sleeve.

"When you come over here and spend time with them."

"You can't force me to do that Mark. Don't you need to be at work today?"

"Naomi said I could have the day off to do this. I have patients tomorrow though," he says softly, reaching out a finger to trace along the incubator of A. Montgomery or Shepherd, or Montgomery-Shepherd, or maybe someday Sloan, or a variation thereof. It's complicated. In his head Sloan is as fine as any but he has a feeling Addison will greatly disagree.

"If you are going to stay," Addison stops when he glares at her, "If you want to stay then I can just grab a cab home, or maybe Naomi-"

"No," Mark asserts. "We're staying here, and then we will go get some lunch, and then you can go home."

"I don't need a tour guide, or a parent Mark. If you want to stay-" she is suddenly cut off this time by sharp monitors, alerting everyone in the room of something wrong. And, not for the first time Mark freezes. She's seen it before, not a proud moment for him, but she springs into action, doctor mode kicking in without thought. "Find a chest tube."

"Addison, you shouldn't-"

"Do it now," she demands as the nurses rush into the room and turn the alarms off. She takes the needle carefully between her fingers, removing the impeding plastic as she prepares herself. She pushes down carefully, puncturing the skin of whichever baby and waits for the tiny puff of air. Then she steals a stethoscope from the neck of the blonde next to her and waits impatiently for equal breath sounds. Satisfied, she steps back and watches the numbers as they steady within the correct range.

Mark pushes off against the wall he seems to find himself fastened to with a steady gulp and a loud, "Fuck" that grabs everyone's attention as they carry on with protocol. When his feet feel steady enough and he's certain that he isn't going to throw up from the adrenaline he presses forward to make sure everything really is normal.

"Her lung collapsed. Sometimes that happens with preemies," the nurse shrugs.

"Addison," Mark breathes, noting her lack of existence within the bustle of the now very active room.

"We'll keep you updated, and I'll page you when Dr. Wynn gets in. She's stable for now."

"Ok," Mark nods absently, checking the group of people once more.

"Dr. Sloan?"

"Yeah?" he answers.

"She went to the left," the nurse announces, pointing to the hallway.

"Oh- I, I wasn't looking-"

"I'll page you if anything changes," she tells him once more, "Go."

When he finds her, after trying to call her, checking on call rooms, and an unfortunate conversation with Dr. King, she's leaning up against the car, watching the clouds that look like they are mercifully packing rain. "Addie."

"Don't," she shakes her head. "Can we go now?"

"She's okay."

"I know that," Addison mocks, eyeing the handle and making it perfectly clear that she'd appreciate it if he would unlock the doors now. "What are we having for lunch?"

"Are you hungry?" he asks surprised.

"No, I'm just making conversation," she replies dryly, growing more antsy by the second.

"You just- plunged- into her," he stammers.

"Well, one of us had to," Addison tells him curtly, not caring if he gets a little bruised by the conversation.

"We need to go back in there."

"We need to go home," she states plainly, her decision made before they even set foot on the grounds, but now more concrete within.

"Please," Mark practically begs, eyes searching to find something he recognizes in her, something he can play to. Perhaps some sympathy, though he dare not say she possesses an ounce of it anymore.

"If you let me grab my purse out of the car, I will call a cab, or Naomi, or Sam. You can stay."

"Addison-"

"I did that!" she yells suddenly, hands slamming into the panel of the door. "That's my fault in there so excuse me if I can't bear to be in the same room as them-"

"You didn't-"

"I did!" She pushes him back when he steps forward, presumably to stroke and soothe something that she doesn't want alleviated. This is her guilt to live down. "They could have been stronger- they could've been better...that's on me, you said. And I- if they don't make it, I...can't. I can't do that again...I don't have anything left to give...there's nothing left Mark, so please can I go home now?"

He watches her wipe her cheeks angrily, the tears still storming down freely. He'd tell her that they will be fine except one of them just tried to jump ship. He'd advise her that this is just difficult and that no one is to blame, but she is right. They could have been healthier, they could have at least weighed a bit more, if she hadn't been so hell bent on controlling every single detail of her neurotic life. "You can't pretend they don't exist because it makes you feel better," he says softly, an ambulance cutting well above his level in the background.

"Watch me."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The dark is consoling in a way the light cannot be yet. In the pitch black it's okay to be inadequate, and afraid. The night falls, leaving only herself to be the judge, Mark sprawled out across the bed beside her. She used to have dreams. Little redheaded children running down the stairs in the brownstone, blue eyed monsters chasing her through their home. It never happened, and the dream got altered to fit into real time- being a single parent. She's stronger alone, she thinks she could be a better person without him constantly by her side wanting in on something she hasn't very well figured out yet.

Addison slips her warm feet to the floor and slides away from her spot, headed downstairs for something to drink. She handles the stairs like a champion, having conditioned herself while Mark is at work, and pours a tall glass of water. She settles at the table, toes skimming the cold wood beneath them, eyes focusing in the darkness that envelops the house. They haven't talked much lately, and it's obvious that he's angry with her for being defensive, but one must rely upon old standbys in a time of need, and being a bitch about everything is what she has. It is interesting though, she thinks, that instead of picking fights with her like he used to do back in New York, he is now content to simply be in the same room with her rage.

The one thing she hates about the night is that her control wavers. Her mind can flit from Mark being oddly nice one minute to replaying the entire scene back at the hospital earlier in the week. Darkness allows for overanalyzation, and in hindsight she could have at least been more compassionate given that he was clearly struggling. It was easy for her, it was like auto pilot, jumping to action. But Mark froze, a rarity. Her feet swing back and forth carelessly over the dustless floor. They'll be coming home soon, Mark says, and she doesn't know how to tell him that she doesn't feel anything but terror and guilt. He wouldn't take it the right way, he'd call her selfish again, tell her that she has other people to think about. And she does, think about them, she simply doesn't have any pulsing desire to be their mother.

When dawn breaks over the ocean she stands, rattled, and prepares Mark's coffee, sliding a raisin bagel into the toaster in case he's hungry. She used to have vivid dreams. Now she has waking nightmares.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Dr. Sloan," the brunette nurse smiles warmly, watching him swagger into the room in his scrubs, fresh from whichever surgery.

"Hey...Holly," he reads off her badge carefully, "How are they today?"

"Good," she looks down. "Dr. Wynn will be in a few minutes to go over some changes."

"Changes?"

"Overnight things," Holly nods, trying to be cheerful. She gathers her things, and bolts from the room, telling the nurse at the counter to page Dr. Wynn as she goes.

"Overnight," Mark repeats softly, taking his usual seat and pulling it as close as he can get away with. He'd stand and lull over them but he's been on his feet all day and he knows his body needs a bit of a break. He tells the twins, A & B everyone calls them (to his displeasure), about his day. From his brief run-in with Naomi who keeps asking when she can come check on Addison (to which he says to leave her alone, for the love of God) to Dr. King asking when they can expect their rotating star back (not anytime soon, he hopes) to all of his borderline annoying patients. He doesn't really talk to the twins about Addison, it feels wrong, to explain why she isn't there to two people who aren't understanding anything he is saying anyway. However, he's sure his voice would take on a new tone and he doesn't want to cause them any undue stress.

"Dr. Sloan," Dr. Wynn greets, sweeping into the room, looking busy as usual. She doesn't wait for Mark to reply, just begins whether he is ready or not. "Slight problem last night," she tosses the chart at him, "we're hoping it won't show on the labs later but we went ahead and switched antibiotics around three this morning. So far, she's responding well."

Mark looks over at B, further away and predictably asleep. Another setback, another flaw prolonging Addison's recovery. "How much longer?"

"I would have said they should be ready, if their weight gain was consistent and the feedings went well, by the end of next week."

"Now?"

"Baby A will be leaving before Baby B," Dr. Wynn explains. "Do you want to try holding her, she's strong enough."

Mark clamps his mouth shut to keep from screaming "Yes!", because it's Addison's gift, not his. She needs this. "Uh- no, I need, I have a surgery in a few minutes that I need to scrub in for."

"Right," Dr. Wynn agrees. "If anything changes-"

"You'll page me," he finishes, having heard the same phrase one hundred times, and yet not paged when anything does actually occur.

"You'll notify Dr. Montgomery?" Dr. Wynn has yet to see her, for a myriad of reasons according to the gossip mill.

"Yes," Mark swallows. "If it-"

"Then we'll treat it as aggressively as possible, maybe operate, but let's not get ahead of ourselves all right? We'll see how she does, it's looking like a scare and nothing more." Dr. Wynn rests a hand on the appropriate incubator and tries to smile.

"Right."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Hi Ellie," Addison smiles warmly the next day, noticing the early time and that her niece is definitely not in school where she belongs.

"Hi," she replies, dragging a purple suitcase in behind her. She tromps toward her old room, now laden with dust bunnies and cobwebs that need sweeping out.

"Pierce," Addison nods and takes a bag from his arms as he makes his way inside.

"I'm sorry I called so early," Pierce apologizes, plucking his youngest daughter from her seat and thrusting her at Addison. "I just...things sort of fell through last night. I talked to the partners and they agreed to give me some time off, straighten things out and make up my mind, but they called last night and I need to be in San Francisco by 4."

"You made up your mind," Addison confirms, absentmindedly rubbing circles over the back of a very drowsy five month old.

"I had a co-worker draw up the papers, and I signed. I can be back down this weekend to finalize things. I pulled a few strings and Judge Williams is willing to sit in."

"I don't want you to feel like you have to do this. Mark was out of line. He was stressed, I was-"

"It's for the best," he smiles reassured. "This is right. I only regret taking so long to realize it. They didn't need to be bounced around like that."

"But-"

"Addison, I would love to discuss things more thoroughly, but I do not have the luxury right now. I brought most of their things and," he reaches a hand into his black slacks, "this is a key to the house. I haven't- I can't bear to part with it...yet, but if you need anything out of there the code is 0814."

"Her birthday," Addison breathes out steadily.

"Yeah, she was always afraid she would forget and set off the alarm and scare Ellie."

"She was a good mom," Addison says softly, cuddling the child against her more tightly.

"She was a good person," Pierce corrects, dabbing at the corner of his eyes quickly out of habit, surprised when there is nothing to cover up. "I...notified Elianna's school so you shouldn't have any problems there and...you have my cell number just in case-"

"It's okay," Addison supports. "It'll be okay." It's amazing how easily this comes back to her, being absorbed in another's problems, pushing away her own.

"I heard...Naomi said...how are they?" He stumbles through the minefield.

"They're good," Addison parrots, telling him the same thing Mark told her the night before about the twins minus the bit about the NEC scare. "They'll be home in no time."

"That's nice to hear," he reaches out for a brief hug, perhaps holding her too strongly for too long but not caring one way or another. She still smells like home and for a brief second he can forget, for just a moment he can breathe normally. "I should go. I have a flight to catch."

"Of course," she mumbles, shifting the heavy weight against her other shoulder. It feels so out of place to be holding Kennedy.

"This is it," he mumbles, looking back toward the stairs where Ellie disappeared to.

"You'll be back," Addison assures him. He needs to come back. She can't deal with the one upstairs if he flat out abandons them again.

"Yeah."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark fingers the ring in his pocket once more, his heart racing a mile a minute. He stuffs the flowers, white and yellow, behind his back, and takes another deep breath. He can't believe he's about to do this, that he's going to do it this lame ass way, but today just feels like the right day and women like romantic stuff. It's hard to explain. He twists the doorknob praying that she's had a good day, and then drops the flowers on the counter when the lower half of the house is already dim with the setting sun.

"Addison?"

"Up," she calls back.

He takes the stairs two at a time, clumsily, almost falling more than once, and grins like an idiot when he sees her sitting on the floor, sorting through her closet. "Busy?"

"Occupying my time," Addison answers, flipping through her fall wardrobe and preparing to move it out of the way. It helps to keep her hands in motion, and she's out of things to read. "Why?" she asks wearily, questioning his joyful mood.

"I was going to make dinner," Mark says, taking a spot on the floor next to her.

"You were going to cook? Voluntarily?"

"I thought it might be nice."

"And I won't die from food poisoning?"

"I can cook," Mark refutes, going through his menu. It's simple spaghetti and salad. No one will be injured. No kitchens will be burnt down in the process, it's the one thing Mrs. Shepherd actually managed to drill into his thick skull before he started getting interested in girls.

"Okay," Addison nods, "Have fun."

"And you'll stay up here?"

"Mark," Addison groans. "I'm not in the mood for company- if you invited people over, you should have called-"

"No people, but Mom called..."

"You didn't," Addison moans, covering her face.

"I can't lie to that woman."

"The only one in the world, apparently," Addison attempts to tease and is met by a blank stare.

"She's upset," Mark says. "She wanted to be here."

"Imagine that," Addison retorts, watching him stand back up and brush off his jeans, fingers twitching as they finally find his pockets. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," he tells her unconvincingly. "You just...stay here, and then I'll get you when it's ready."

"Ma-rk?" Addison stutters as he reaches the doorway.

"Yeah?" he answers, concerned by the odd look on her face. He stills thinking that it may be a moment, an actual breakthrough. "Addie?"

"I was...hoping, maybe we could go-"

"We can go," Mark nods eagerly. "A, not a but ummm...A," he struggles, trying to figure out how to imply something that remains nameless. "They said- we can hold her. I didn't, I thought you should first-"

Addison's face falls, her rouse up. "- to see the elephants tomorrow," she finishes.

"Wh-" Mark begins but is suddenly wrapped up in catching a five year-old as she storms out of the bathroom and clings to his legs. "She in there the entire time?" Mark asks, amused by the attention, as Addison has turned back to shuffling through her wooden hangers. Evidently, she wasn't kidding.

"You talk a lot," Ellie answers for him, Addison silent.

"You talk a lot," Mark tells her, swinging her up easily into his embrace. "What are you doing here?" he asks pointedly, looking at Addison.

"Daddy said me and Kendy stay here now," Ellie says, fingering the collar of his white shirt. "Mark, I'm hungry."

"You didn't feed her?" Mark says, this time a little louder.

"She never-"

"It's eight Addison, she should be in bed by now. You know that- Where's Kennedy?"

"Asleep, in her room. And she isn't hungry and she doesn't need to be changed," she answers for him, before he can ask. "I'm not incompetent."

"I never-"

"Don't," Addison warns before he can launch into a tirade about how he does trust her and how she's a good Aunt. She doesn't need another speech. She doesn't need to be lied to. "Go cook, she's hungry."

Mark rolls his eyes and turns back to the child in his arms. "Wanna help?"

"Yeah," Ellie answer eagerly, happy to be doing anything with any adult. Thankful for the recognition.

On their way downstairs, in a very different mood, he has to poke his head in and check on the baby in the other room. She's asleep, just like he was told, but the fact that he had to make certain completely ruins all of his plans for the evening. Proposing can wait. There are more pressing matters at hand, like the girl on his back urging him to hurry up.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison!" Mark yells up the stairs, looking back over his shoulder at Ellie who has decided not to wait for anyone to start eating. He grumbles when he gets no response, and climbs the stairs begrudgingly, angry that she seldom answers when he calls for her anymore. She was better behaved on bed rest.

"Dinner," Mark says as calmly as possible, finding her asleep, pathetically wound into discarded shirts, a dress as her pillow. He sighs and takes the duty of scooping her up willingly. She mumbles when disturbed, groaning angrily about being moved. Sometimes Mark likes half-awake Addison more than the real version. He gets little bursts, brilliant and fleeting, of what she once was like. It feels like home.

Addison curls into a tight ball as soon as she is deposited on the bed, tugging a pillow against her chest to clutch at. He can tell she fights against the dreams still, often taking extra precaution to not wake him. He hears the short gasps, can feel her racing pulse across the mattress, traveling like a jolt of electricity. Most of the time he lets her handle it herself, but on occasion he reaches across the expanse, the canyon they've made together, and shuffles her back against him. He can't really tell if it ever helps, he's not sure anything does anymore.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

After dinner is mostly cleaned up, dishes in the sink left for the morning hours, Mark settles Ellie into a bedtime story instead of a movie (her idea, he was leaning toward letting the underused television do some work for once), and finally wishes her a goodnight. The door cracked open, night light firmly switched on. He checks on Kennedy once more, surprisingly quiet after a quick bottle, and finds her passed out, apparently making up for lost time on all the sleep she missed earlier in her life.

The water from his nightly shower cascades down, scalding, washing him clean of the day. One thing is official, children are draining. He thinks he may have been able to handle it if he had some in his early thirties, not that he wanted any then, not that he wanted any before he had them. Some things just have to beat you over the head to understand, but he's thankful. Happy mostly, because they represent another thing to concentrate energy on.

It's all he does lately. Being in the present. When he works he gives one-hundred-ten percent, when he's at home it's the Addison show, when he's in traffic he finds a case to think over or now, wonders what the twins' stats are looking like.

If every moment is taken there is no time left to hurt, there is nothing to haunt him if he can just remain in control.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison tumbles from the bed, loud cries coming from the hall. Panic sets in first, before she realizes who she is, and what her life has become. And then she understands it's just her niece needing something. So she peels her tongues from the roof of her mouth, trying to remember to brush her teeth when she comes back, and wipes the sleep from her eyes. Mark is soundly asleep somehow, and the last thing she wants is another conversation so she steadies herself and heads out to handle the storm that is Kennedy.

"Ow," she groans, her bare heel coming in contact with something too sharp for the midnight hour. She bends over, almost losing her balance in the dark, and dislodges the offending article from her foot. It takes about thirty seconds of palming and squinting to realize that it's a ring. She folds her fingers over it and rushes out, hoping that everyone will just stay asleep.

It's awkward in a way she didn't think it would be anymore, having seen Kennedy and her many moods too many times to count. But she's bigger now, heavier, and slightly less temperamental. She takes diaper changes like a pro, soothing herself with her thumb when the cold air hits her skin. It's like dealing with a stranger. A stranger who needs a lot of help.

Addison tucks the baby against her chest, feeling her hair already being tugged into little fingers, and heads downstairs to find a bottle. As she sways across the kitchen floor, murmuring comforting tones she didn't think she knew, she examines the ring on the counter more carefully. It's not hers, but she's been at the house so damn much that she knows no random blonde left it on the floor. All of which leaves one possibility.

She doesn't think she'd blame him, swallowing the truth as she checks the temperature of the formula in front of her. It's been a while for them, especially with bed rest, and he has needs. It doesn't burn like she expects it to, it simply runs through her with a chill, coming to a rest in her head as something that doesn't need to be argued about. Mark's still here, after all. And he made dinner for a child that isn't his, and he keeps other children that aren't his company as they fight for their lives. At some point the tables turned, Mark becoming the good guy, Addison becoming the woman who is overly tolerant of things that would have made her yell and cry before.

Now not even a smidgen of anguish comes, there's no tingle in her core, no slow fizzle that tightens her throat and threatens tears. She used to be glass, now she feels like concrete. No longer empty and fragile. She's full of dense, compacted pain, heavy, and cracked. She's been treaded upon without pricking anyone, but her surface is never smooth, compounded with divots and holes, an always surprisingly terrible plane of travel.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

When she returns, minus a sleepy infant, one of the bedside lamps is on and Mark is scrubbing his hands over his face.

"She was just hungry," Addison tells him, ring burning her palm as she discards it on the dresser. On a whim, an attempt to be the fiery individual she seems to have lost, she plucks it back up from the mess and holds it out, her face questioning.

It takes Mark's eyes a second to focus, but when they do, his stomach jumps into his throat. "I-you weren't supposed to find that."

Addison nods grimly, feet seemingly frozen. "I figured."

"You weren't supposed- it wasn't supposed to be like this," Mark shakes his head sleepily and resigns himself to giving up the game. It's less glamorous than a candlelit dinner next to the waves, and he doesn't remember much of the long winding speech he wanted to give her about how they aren't perfect, but how he loves more for it. He shifts his feet out first, wobbly legs coming next. Then it's two feet forward and he drops down on one knee, taking the ring from its perch in her fingers.

"What- are you doing?" Addison asks nervously. He was cheating on her, and she was okay with that outcome. This not so much.

"I was going to make you dinner," Mark gulps. "And I wanted it to be different, but- I just...I love you."

"Mark-" Addison warns, feeling her eyes cloud over with panic.

"Will you marry me?" he asks, feeling it roll off his tongue for the first time ever, if you don't count the practicing in the car, and while he waited for elevators.

Her first instinct is to laugh, loudly, but the flash of sincerity and then subsequent fear are enough to make her realize that he isn't kidding at all. He really was going to make her dinner, and propose apparently. Then, "Why?" comes tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop herself and Mark's mouth falls open in thought.

"Addie-"

"Yes," Addison recovers quickly, afraid she wasn't fast enough to recoup the grand mistake she just made. "Yes, I will marry you."

She feels her feet leave the ground a few seconds later, his lips lightly kissing her neck, her arms wrapping around his neck out of habit. Mark is happy. Genuinely and wholly. And he deserves it, she notes, as his hands slide down her waist carefully, the moment of truth inching closer as his mouth begins to explore the finer points of three a.m. kisses.

Mark needs this, but Addison still wants to know why.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"How you been?" Pete asks, pushing the sunglasses off his face, and dropping them into the pocket of his leather coat.

"Fine," Addison answers, her right ring finger weighted with an ill-made decision, but one that she'll uphold because ultimately she knows this is what is supposed to happen, what she wanted to happen. "I need a ride," she elucidates, cutting right to the chase.

Pete knocks a few fingers against the motorcycle helmet in his hand, signaling her that she picked the wrong person for the job. "Sam is on lunch, if you want."

"No," Addison answers too fast, scaring him. "I...we can take my car." She runs from the room, knowing she has only two hours before Mark will come home for lunch, no doubt in an even more joyful mood than he was when he left with Ellie earlier this morning. She grabs her purse, and Kennedy, already prepared in a car seat, and rushes back toward the entryway.

"Do I want to know what we are doing?" Pete asks skeptically.

"It's just a ride Wilder. I can't drive. Nothing illegal, scout's honor."

"All right then," Pete smiles, light from her hand distracting him. "You're getting married?"

"No," Addison scoffs, but then Pete lifts her palm and she remembers once again what feels so foreign there. "Oh...yeah. We need to go."

"You don't sound excited," Pete notes, as they make their way to the garage.

"I am," Addison argues. "I just have a million things to do and-"

"Got it," Pete nods sorrowfully. Sure, his chances grew slimmer by the day but with that shiny piece of gold on her finger they're all but extinct now. Plus, Mark's turned out to be a pretty great guy, not that he knows much about their relationship, but he believes they could make it. Addison is the marrying type anyway, Naomi always says.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Thank-s, thank you for seeing me again," Addison stammers, staring at Jacob Atwater like he holds the key to her future.

"Not a problem Addison, please sit," Jake tells her, pointing to chair. He always feels more comfortable when his patients are calm.

"No," Addison declines, twisting the new ring around her finger mindlessly.

"You're ready?" Jake asks, just to be sure.

"Yeah," Addison nods.

"Why do you think you are ready now?" he asks, taking into account the fact that she looks significantly slimmer in her jeans than before. He'll get to that later. Her hair doesn't look crazy enough, her eyes not baggy enough to have had a newborn living with her. And he would know, he and his wife have done that dance of no sleep and eight cups of coffee a day four times already.

"He proposed," Addison grins despite herself, beginning to pace the floor.

"He?"

"Mark...my...whatever. He proposed."

"Fiancé," Jake corrects for her, scribbling a few notes down.

"He proposed," Addison rambles, "And all I could say was why. I asked him why."

"What did he say?" Jake questions, pen getting its mileage.

"Normal people don't ask why," Addison continues. "I...don't ask why," she recalls, Derek on one knee, the dusk in the background.

She looks up at him clueless, face washed clean of everything she once knew, red lips slacking. Jacob pauses, breaking with tradition and not firing off another question. He lets the silence shroud them in her confusion, in her moment.

"You have to fix me."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	40. Somebody that I used to know

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
I watched you deal in a dying day  
And throw the living past away  
So you can be sure that you're in control  
You're just somebody that I used to know  
- Elliott Smith, "Somebody That I Used To Know"  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

_"You have to fix me."_

Jake clears his throat, trying to reign her back in, snap her into reality. "You will fix you Addison. I can help. We can do this together."

"Ok," Addison nods, pursing her lips in thought. "So...what are you thinking?"

Jake balks for a second, unsure of how to proceed with how forward she's being. "Twice a week. Hour long sessions. And from there we'll develop more."

"But," Addison's face crumples. "Can't you- I was hoping," she clarifies. "I thought...maybe some sort of anti-depressant."

"Self-diagnosing?" Jake asks with an impolite chuckle to which she does not reply. "I'm not sure you're depressed."

"I-" Addison gulps, throat suddenly tightening, "am. Definitely."

"Well, you'll have to humor me. I like to talk to my patients before I sign off on anything."

"I want to be fixed," Addison restates, befuddled, ground beginning to shake.

"That's admirable, and I'm pleased that you've returned but you need to understand that I don't know anything about you Addison. I'm a responsible doctor so just stop by and see Sandy on your way out and we'll start whenever you are ready."

"I...keep thinking I killed her. I dream about it- I don't sleep well. And I...don't know how to be with him. I think I love him, but I just...can't breathe when he's there," she swallows the emerging knot carefully, gaging Dr. Atwater's response. She's pulling out all the stops, manipulating the ending she so badly needs. "I compartmentalize. I don't deal with things, I bury them. And I'm scared that I'll never get over him, what happened. And I need to move on. It is time to move on."

"Killed who?" Jake asks, tackling the largest problem first. He's got seven minutes and if she wants to talk then that's fine. The pacing though, he could do without that.

"I didn't. I know, logically, I didn't. I wasn't there. I wasn't driving the car, but sometimes I think...I don't know- I could have stopped it...or if I would have called back then..." Her hands wind through themselves, tangling intricate patterns of flesh in the open air. "I have her kids, and I don't want them. I don't want my own."

"Why?"

"I'm scared," Addison adds, not paying attention to him, tears threatening the corners of her eyes for the first time in well over a week. "I don't recognize...I'm not coming back, and I hate this person inside my head."

"Time," Jake murmurs, letting his pen slide onto the table.

"I never thought," Addison smiles weakly, "I'd want to go back to...all of that, but I- I miss me. Even...that me."

"Go back to where?" he attempts futilely.

"What if I'm...not?"

"Addison," Jake says softly, "I want to continue this," he nods enthusiastically, "but right now, I have someone waiting. Sandy can help you figure out what works with your schedule."

She sighs loudly, collecting her emotions, pulling the hurricane back within. "I need you to give me-"

"And maybe I will," Jake assures her, "but not today. Tomorrow. Come back."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"That doesn't look like it went well," Pete notes, observing Addison's sunglasses over her splotchy face.

"Went fine," Addison snuffles, resting her head against the cool tinted glass of the window.

"If you ever...need anything Addison-"

"Don't," Addison whispers, barely over the hum of the engine in traffic, "please don't."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

When the NEC scare happened to be nothing more than just a scare Mark was overjoyed, and the first time he got to stick a hand inside the incubator he thought his heart was going to explode, but nothing is comparing to this. Pressed against his chest, a little ball of warmth lies, breathing carefully, wrapped snuggly in a white blanket.

He whispers things, saying hello, pointing out her sister, mentioning a few details about his day thus far. "A" is quiet, they both are, fighting for the strength they have and not able to scream to their mind's content quite yet. Mark thinks they'll be loud though, they're women, and if the Shepherd household taught him anything it's that women, especially in groups, are insanely loud. They border on annoying ninety-nine percent of the time, but these two will be different.

There's a bond he can't explain. He feels full, unearthed from the hole he was wallowing in. They give purpose, renew his hope, and make him remember what it was like all those years ago to actually dream. And as soon as they are healthier, as soon as they can handle their feedings, then they will be where they belong. At home, together, as a family.

Mark grins and lightly rests his hand on A's back. He's finally found his people, his spot, where he isn't unwanted and cast off. Here he is an integral part of every day activities, and they are the reason the sun shines.

He only wishes Addison felt the same.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Pete gets both redheads through the door with relative ease, watching Addison dash off upstairs as soon as the keys come to a rest on the kitchen counter. He takes it upon himself to jiggle the now fussy baby, swaying slowly in the living room. "Addison!" he yells upward, "When was the last time she ate?"

The silence cues his feet forward to the kitchen littered with dishes in need of a scrubbing, Addison's once pristine home tarnished by children's messy hands. Cereal bowls clutter the edge of the sink and Pete riffles through drawers trying to find a clean bottle, checking the refrigerator and cupboards to see if maybe she is switching to real food any day soon.

"What are you doing?" Addison asks, leaning against the wall, watching him suffer.

"I was...hoping she's hungry," he says quietly, looking at her now changed body. Two and a half weeks and she's carrying almost none of the weight she gained. She's fuller though, warmer than he recalls. He gulps suddenly, turning back to the drawer. It's not his place, but it doesn't mean he doesn't feel something for her still. Residual flames of something never really tested.

"Do you think..." Addison pauses, unsure of what he'll say. They don't know each other at all. "Do you think I'm different...than I was?"

Pete purses his lips, mulling it over. Of course she's different, he just doesn't know how to respond appropriately. "People change," he shrugs, carefully moving Kennedy as he finally fishes a bottle free and looks around for the formula.

"Yeah," Addison nods, and strolls forward, taking over for him as he continues to soothe the baby on his shoulder. "Did you...ever....talk about kids?"

Pete frowns, "I never really thought about it. Anna didn't...it wasn't for...no. How are yours?"

"Good," Addison tells him. She still has no clue, sometimes Mark will mention something, other times it seems he's completely given up on her.

"Coming home soon?" Pete asks her, as she tries to organize the madness around the sink. Her housekeeper got ill and no replacement was sent so for the last five days chaos has just been ruling the area. If she has the strength to care she'd call for another, but it's too much.

"I'm not really sure," Addison says sheepishly.

"Did you name them yet? Violet started a bet with Cooper-"

"Pete," Addison interjects, handing him the now warm bottle. "I can't."

"Ok," he agrees easily, and slides out of the kitchen and to a nearby couch.

She lets him feed Kennedy because he seems comfortable and despite her best attempts the child still likes most everyone better than her. It's nice to have his help anyway.

Pete traces a light finger over Kennedy's sucking cheek, reveling in its softness. She looks a great deal like Addison, both girls do, their mother's features a strong family trait apparently. But Addison isn't calm like the child in his arms, she's nearly squirming off the couch, feet tucked under her legs, a pillow fisted into her grip. "You can talk to me, you know."

"You should get back...to work."

"I took a long lunch, and then I just called it. I don't have any patients anyway," Pete informs her, now rubbing Kennedy's foot. "Are you really going to marry him?" When she stares back him challengingly he presses forward. "He just doesn't seem like Addison Montgomery material."

"You don't know me Pete," Addison warns, predatory tones ready at the will.

"I know you don't look happy. You don't look like you did in the beginning."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addison? Addie!" Mark calls through the house, dropping his stuff by the door and looking around at the stillness that the room is enveloped in. No tiny feet rush to greet him, there's no screaming in the background. His heart begins pounding, and deep down he resents her for scaring him like this so constantly.

They're always on this ledge, and he's afraid she's going to topple over without him.

"Addison!" he yells once more, before sweeping the downstairs and finding no one.

She turns up in the hallway, midway between their room and Kennedy's. Her face is buried in her legs, palms clenching her knees shut, sobs stifled by the material that she is trying to draw breath from. There's never been a part of Mark that sits well with her in this state. He supposes it's a man thing to want to help her, heal her, but it's also just them. That's the relationship they've always shared and she's slowly breaking away from him. It's terrifying.

He used to be the person to catch her when Derek dismissed her. He'd hold her hand when it was shaking, and let her apologize after crying all night while they waited for him to come home. In one respect he cherishes Derek for putting them together, for giving him that, but in the more obvious way he hates that it even had to happen.

Mark taps her shoulder, but she refuses to look up, refuses his support. She appears to be content with the suffering so he gently glides down the wall, a few inches apart. Inches that should be miles for all she has let him in lately. He can't comfort her because to reach out and grab would send her into a fury. He can't kiss it all better, because he never fucking knows what the hell is wrong anymore. They're engaged, and in every story he knows, even the bad ones, they involve some sort of pleasure at this stage of the relationship.

So he waits it out, hoping that Kennedy is simply napping and that someone has Ellie because certainly making her feel inferior and like a bad guardian won't make the situation any better. And while he knows she'd never willingly endanger the girls, he also knows that Aunt Addison isn't herself and that has repercussions. "Addison?" he questions softly, as she trembles next to him.

"Go away," she squeaks achingly. She's a holy wreck, a hot mess on the tracks about to be hit by a train and he doesn't need to be involved. She doesn't need or want coddling, she doesn't want someone to make her feel any better because the pain, the sheer anguish that's hers to bear. There's no armor with which to defend herself and every stab reaches just a bit further inside. Addison lifts her head slowly, tears warm down her cheeks, and faces him. She can read it in his worried eyes, and it hurts more than the rest that he doesn't trust her anymore. "Just ask."

Mark sighs but continues anyway, his hand being blocked as he tries to wipe away a few stray tears. "Where is Ellie?"

"At a friend's house," Addison holds a hand up when he tries to interrupt. "She wanted to go, and she hasn't had a friend. I thought it would be good. We have to pick her up at seven. Sam has Kennedy, he offered." And it was in the silence of her house, devoid of loud toys or earth defying screams that Addison lost her resolve and finally began to mourn the loss of her previous self.

She tried for so many months to get it back, to just retreat to the powerhouse she used to be, but it's more obvious than ever that it was a faulty tactic.

"Ok," Mark says, checking his watch and seeing that he still has about twenty minutes before he needs to leave, secretly wondering if he was any later if she would have remembered to have someone pick Ellie up, or if she would even bother to call. "Do you want..." he motions to his lap, hoping maybe she'd like to curl up in his arms but she declines and sets her head back on her knees, turning away from him. "Addison-"

"I just want to be alone Mark," Addison says curtly, wanting him to skip off and prove her right. He refuses to screw up, always so perfect the last few months, taking the right steps even when they seem wrong. It makes her anxious because she's such a fuck up, scared he'll give up, frightened she's going to end up all alone. She feels the thump against the wall as he begins to stand. "Please don't hate me," she blurts out, embarrassment fresh in her cheeks.

Mark shakes his head, floored by her pleading. All he wanted to do was come home, eat dinner, watch some television and tell her about his great adventures with holding A. Now she's pulling this crap, and looks justifiably horrified by her own demeanor. "I don't hate you," Mark replies carefully, squatting down, his jeans straining against his legs. He tilts her chin up slightly and presses a firm kiss to her cheek, afraid to touch her watery lips.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Addison admits, God she wanted those pills so badly. Just to prove to herself that it could be fixed. Just to prove that there is something wrong, that this isn't her new permanent state of being. "I can't...get past anything."

"It's a lot Addie," Mark tells her, sinking to the floor, sliding closer to her, one leg on each side of her shaking body. "It's a lot to get past."

Addison looks up briefly. She doesn't know how to talk to him. She doesn't know how to say that she misses Derek but in a platonic sort of way that breaks her heart. Or how to tell him that seeing the kids that he demanded they keep day in and day out is causing literal flashbacks, panic attacks and nightmares. She doesn't know how to say that she doesn't want to actually marry him but that she does want to spend her life right here. And she can't say she isn't happy, and that this, whatever mess they are making, isn't working for her. They agreed to talk, but these things, they are off limits. None of it his fault, but she's never been good at not taking it out on him. She stuffs it all down with a big gulp. "Yeah."

"It's getting better," Mark assures her. And it is, for him. He's ten million steps above drinking himself into a stupor and hanging out on random sidewalks until people shoo him away. Those days are long gone, and even with the commitments racking up he feels no desire to run. For the first time, Mark feels secure, correct in his decisions. He just doesn't know that those same choices are spinning Addison in a dizzying dance of self-loathing and manic depression. "It's already gotten better."

Addison thinks she was better at Christmas, cloaked on Callie and Cristina's couch. She was better standing in the sand, telling Derek he was going to be a father. It was better in Seattle, where he refused to be. She feels like she is scraping the bottom of the barrel here, dying a slow death in the perpetually bright sun, dry drowning. But the months before, the plane ticket and the sonograms, the revelations and working- it was all doused in a high volume of denial. She put so much effort into feeling nothing at all, firm that it would help, that now there is no recourse. It must slam down violently and come to its own resting point. Tortuously dragged out, she envies him endlessly.

"I'm going to go pick up Ellie. Does Sam know where-"

"Yes," Addison croaks, stopping him short.

"I'll be back. I'll get dinner."

Mark disappears down the stairs, taking another helpless look upstairs as she cradles her own head, stuck in the same spot she's probably been in for hours.

Two minutes after the door clicks closed, Addison realizes that her temporary salvation is waiting in the kitchen. She ambles downward, skull pounding from her endeavors, and pours a tall glass of red wine. The first sip is electric, jumbling her fried nerves. She sets the glass down, looking at the ocean, and then grabs the bottle and heads to the beach for some self-medicating.

It worked for Mark.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The second time Mark arrives home he is busy trying to juggle backpacks and babies, listening to Ellie yammer on and on and on about her new friend Scottie, who to Mark's surprise was actually a boy, not a cute nickname for the weird girl in class.

"Scottie says that sometimes his mommy lets friends sleepover, can I do that Mark?" Ellie bounces, happily, finally getting some scheduling in her life.

"We'll see."

"I really, really, really, really want to," Ellie whines suddenly, waves betraying her ecstatic attitude, letting him see just how tired she really is, and why it was probably a horrible idea for Addison to allow her to go to a friend's on a school night.

"I know, maybe though, okay? Go get ready for bed."

"But I'm hungry," Ellie tells him, trying to get his attention as he plays with her blabbering sister. She resents the attraction, hates that it is generally about Kendy. She can scream too.

"We're eating in our pajamas," Mark tells her, lying through his teeth, astonished that this seems to come so easily after being told (repeatedly, by many) that he'd be shit for a father figure. Apparently, you just have to want it bad enough. Whatever the cause, Ellie seems to be keen on the idea and skips off to find something to sleep in while Mark tries to settle the youngest one down. He tries the swaying, the bouncing, the weird jungle gym thing that Kennedy likes to kick at but she's not having any of it. Unable to focus, or go get dinner out of the car he heads toward where Addison's ponytail flames are shooting up over a lounge chair on the deck.

He talks softly to the baby in his arms, relieved to see that she seems to like the noise of the ocean roaring around her. "Addie, can you hold her- I need to go get dinner out of the car."

"Sure," Addison grins sloppily, reaching out, eyes still glazed over from her earlier attempts at self-soothing before becoming inebriated was an option.

"You're drunk," Mark accuses, her busy hand looped around a mostly empty bottle that used to live in the kitchen.

"Almost," Addison agrees with a reflective frown. She's so close she can feel her skin buzzing, her teeth chattering in the wind. But it's just not there yet. The pinprick of relief hasn't been torn wide open yet, but it's coming.

"Wh-" Mark stops himself as she licks around the bottle opening, her tongue swirling anxiously, a wobbly hand still waiting for Kennedy to be deposited. "Forget it," he storms, leaving her to her ideas, and his rumpled sweatshirt.

The door slamming sounds far off to Addison, who stumbles forward into the sand, falling over unceremoniously, fingers tracing through the damp granules. The stars are hidden behind smog, and haze, but the ocean is loud enough to cancel out any residual thoughts she may have. Seconds later she's in the salty water, waves lapping at her knees, Mark's borrowed pajamas soaked up to her thighs.

Experimentally she leaps forward, buoyant, but arms weighed down by twisting sleeves. She strips the material, her tank top hanging limply across her relaxed form. She lies back, the water catching her, and rides the swell all the way back to the sand where she began. Again and again the gentle liquid carries her lifeless body over silky sea plants, the floor stirred by her dangling feet. The mercifully black night wrapping her in a bath of understanding until she takes the initiative to dive in head first, just missing a breaking crest.

The ocean is her solace, the alcohol her savior, and ten minutes later Mark is her hero as he pumps away on her chest, attempting necessary life saving measures on the redhead that just tried to drown herself a few feet from him.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark's tired the next day, and rightfully so. After pulling Addison from the water that threatened their new life, after bringing her back to him, after listening to her deluded and pathetic excuses as she combed her tangled hair with her fingers-well, he feels like he could fall asleep on his desk if only he would lay his head down.

He hasn't made it to see the twins today yet, and without a surgery on the board over there, it's looking less than likely that he'll make it. He reasons that they'd understand if they knew, but he hopes they never have to know Addison in the frightening capacity that he witnessed her in last night.

Mark didn't want to leave her this morning, offered to call in sick and sit angrily downstairs, but she swore she wouldn't try anything funny and that her current headache was going to be punishment enough as soon as Kennedy woke up from her first nap of the day. So reluctantly he slung his bag over one shoulder and stomped to the car. He ditched the morning meeting in favor of fetching his own coffee, and begged off of rounds at St. Ambrose, hoping that Charlotte wouldn't notice him missing.

He was awake all night, watching the slow rise and fall of Addison's chest, afraid it may stop again after she swore she didn't need any further medical attention. He felt like 5150'ing her. Dragging her in and putting down his own name on the psychiatric hold, but somehow that didn't feel like the answer. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what is anymore.

He groans when the knock at his door brings him back from almost dialing home to talk to her again, the fifth time in four hours. He doesn't know when he turned into this guy.

"Mark," Naomi greets, inviting herself in and to one of his seats, staring at him until he replies with a grunt of her name.

"Long night?" Naomi asks. "We missed you this morning."

"I...had a thing. Anything good?"

"I'll have Dell fill you in," Naomi smiles as he drifts off, his cell phone clutched in one hand. "Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"You need anything?" Naomi wonders aloud. He seems a little off his game today, and he was so inexplicably, deliriously happy yesterday that the change feels a bit bi-polar.

Mark thinks he may need many things, including a new fiancée, if she is ever to become successful in her endeavors. "I'm good. Just...a rough one."

"Right," Naomi nods. "I...was thinking about dropping in to see Addison on my way home tonight. She hasn't returned any of my calls...I kind of miss her."

"That'd be good," Mark agrees. Really, anything could help.

"Yeah," Naomi mumbles, heading toward the door. "Mark?" he looks up in a reply, an unreadable expression masking his face. "She knows...I didn't mean to abandon her-she's my best friend, I didn't do that on purpose...she pushes people away."

"She knows," Mark comforts her. But what Addison knows and what she chooses to acknowledge seem to be completely different things these days.

"Good. Thank you."

Mark nestles his head in his arms after she goes, his blinds already drawn against the sun. It wouldn't be such a horrible thing to squish in a quick bit of shut eye.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I may have subconsciously tried to drown myself last night," Addison opens, looking at Dr. Atwater impatiently, waiting for him to throw a prescription in her face.

"Sub-"

"I decided to go swimming. In the ocean. At night. Also, I was a little drunk."

"You're alive."

"No thanks to you," Addison retorts, taking note of the green sprigs beginning to take hold outside. It's been unseasonably cold but there they are. Trying.

"I wasn't under the impression you were suicidal, forgive me," Jake continues, challenging her to say something real.

"I'm not," she replies. "I'm...not. It was an accident."

"You don't sound remorseful," Jake notes, scribbling in the margins of his yellow pad. He doesn't feel the need to write anything with her. He doesn't think he could forget their sessions if he wanted to.

"Mark pulled me out of the water-"

"Mark is?"

"My fiancé," Addison informs him obliviously.

"We have a fiancé still. No ring." He points to her hand, bare and twitching.

"It's in the ocean," Addison grieves. She doesn't know if Mark noticed, if he thinks she took it off purposefully, if he believes it is hidden in their bedroom somewhere.

Jake nods understandingly. "Why don't we pick up where we left off yesterday. Tell me more about your child."

"Children," Addison corrects thoughtlessly. That's kind of the extent of what she knows. There's two of them. They're rather intimidating.

"Go ahead," he urges, crossing his legs, and preparing for her story.

What he doesn't expect is her silence.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Can we stop off at the pharmacy?" Addison asks, trying to be casual, heart racing rapidly under her purple blouse.

"I- uh, sure," Pete stumbles, flicking his blinker on to get over as far as he can as they head deeper downtown in a mess of traffic and crashes.

"Does Mark know about this?" Pete questions as they ride back to her house, a white bag clutched in her fists.

"No," Addison laments, eyes trained outside of her window, ignoring Kennedy babbling in the backseat. Her eyes are bloodshot and feel like there are shards of glass in them, her throat is cracked and raw, sore and tired. Her hair feels limp, her clothes showing off things she isn't proud of, the heels on her feet squishing her toes painfully. It isn't a good day to mess with her.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"It's not your place," she reminds him as they pull into the driveway, deflecting his question.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison manages to stuff away her pills amongst the piles of clothes that are occupying her closet, ready and waiting for dry cleaning. She figures Mark isn't going to take it upon himself to clean up anytime soon, and the first time she tries to swallow the medicine, the guilt, it nearly gets stuck in her throat. She washes it all down with a full glass of water and then turns back to Kennedy, who is rocking herself back and forth, hands and knees, attempting to get mobile.

Addison has enjoyed watching her nieces grow and change, self-assured that their mother would be infinitely proud of the finger painted pictures littering the refrigerator, of the macaroni necklace Addison refuses to wear around her neck but will loop around her wrist to prance around the house when Ellie insists that they play dress up. Everything takes a huge amount of effort, however.

The incision itself isn't pulling anymore, and it looks good, but the fog that surrounds her mind, the cement hold on her heart, it's difficult to deal with. It's hard to slip a pair of heels on Ellie's feet and pretend her laughs are genuine, not like she's waiting for Mark to come home and relieve her of her duties. And his arms, that once previously were the only thing holding her together, now feel like she is trapped in a vice, unable to breathe, unable to move.

She feels trapped, and she feels at fault for not being able to recognize that this, despite the children in a NICU far away, is probably the best her life has been going in months, maybe years.

A man who loves her, nieces who she adores (albeit dislikes also), and a happy practice anxiously awaiting her return. She has everything she ever set out to have, achieved in the most unconventional ways possible.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Because sleep never came for Mark he decided to skip out of the office early, changing his voicemail and letting the receptionist know to only contact him if it was an absolute emergency. On his way to the local watering hole Pete showed him months ago he is lured in by bright ambulance lights, and the next thing he knows he is flipping a u-turn and headed straight toward St. Ambrose.

It's not like they can recognize him or even focus on his face, but Mark likes to think that the twins take comfort in him showing up everyday, in knowing that someone is waiting for them to get all the way better. It's this compassion, usually reserved for the most tender of his patients, that draws Charlotte toward the NICU on her way out.

"Sloan," she barks, dusting off her lab coat and pushing a pen into her pocket.

"Dr. King," Mark greets, eyes never leaving B. His finger is grasped tightly in her strengthening hold.

"How are they?" Charlotte asks interestedly, motioning to a lulling nurse for a piece of paper to read over. She's been getting daily report cards from the department on these two very special ladies, but she has yet to be able to swing by since their birth, weeks ago.

"They're good," Mark murmurs to himself softly, scooting closer to the incubator. He hasn't been able to hold B yet, she isn't steady enough to be removed from the warmth and security she has come to know, but the day is coming, he is positive.

"They're strong," Charlotte comments, reading through the scribbles. "Where's Montgomery?"

"At home," Mark replies, hoping that is actually where she is. Sam agreed to take Ellie home from school on his way to drop Maya off at her violin lesson, and with any luck Addison is there to receive her. He hasn't heard any news to the contrary, but he also hasn't called and checked in for nearly three hours.

"Has she-"

"No," Mark interjects. Addison hasn't been here, Addison doesn't see them, Addison doesn't really seem to care one way or another, no matter how untrue Mark wants to think it all is- her charade. He remembers how she used to coo at the newborns back in Seattle, how she'd talk to them quietly, mouth little things to them in her own private world. She was always so good with babies, Mark thought for sure she'd come around by now. Be in here, with him, rocking A, maybe try feeding her.

He had expectations. He's learning to give them up. The house with the fence, and the kids, it's just not their lives. It was never meant to be that way.

"I see," Charlotte drawls slowly. "She will need to sign off-"

"I know," Mark complies. She will have to show up sooner or later, whether she wants to or not. He just doesn't want to drag her in here, kicking and screaming the entire way, inventing reasons as to why he can handle everything.

"Well, I'll leave you to them. They look good."

"Thanks," Mark smiles, switching babies, preparing himself to lift the lightweight in front of him.

Charlotte pauses by the door watching the well muscled man wrangle a fluffy blanket, carefully adjusting the baby against his chest. He looks utterly out of place and completely at ease in his role. "Also, pick some goddamn names already. It's confusing."

Mark laughs, his lungs puffing out, and scaring a squawk out of the infant close to him. "I'll work on her."

Mark settles into the rocking chair in the corner, swaying lightly, the blanket draped over the back slapping against the wooden spindles. Holding A, feeling her body against his, it's the most wonderful drug in the world. He's filled with warmth, love, pride, astonishment. The space around him comes to a screeching halt when she's there, little hands flying into the air, mouth relaxed. He's surprised by how much they look like Derek. His surely wavy dark curls atop their heads, his eyes, his ears. But there's also a lot of Addison that he thinks people don't see. It's in their cheeks, their nose. Subtle, but becoming more and more obvious to him.

He takes comfort in their familiarity, in their combined genes. The two people he loved most together. It's calming when he thought it would be provoking, assuring when thought it would be a sound source of anxiety. It's nice to see a bit of his best friend when he looks down, revitalizing even. There's no fresh pain, just a dull ache of longing and memories. Some days are still harder than others, but having this, having them and Ellie and Kennedy to look forward to, to occupy him, well he couldn't have asked for a better course of healing.

He just wishes that Addison felt the same, that he could help her in the way that they have all helped him.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It took Naomi nearly five days to make good on her proposal, Sam, Maya, and work all tying her hands until at the end of the day she could do nothing more than swallow sweet wine and collapse into bed. She understands that she hasn't seen Addison in over three weeks, not nearly their longest stretch, but certainly deplorable considering she's spent a majority of her time right next door. Naomi raises her hand and lightly touches her knuckles against the door. She knows Addison has Kennedy in there somewhere and tears never seem to make any visit better than another.

"Nae," Addison gulps, pulling back the door and adjusting her lopsided ponytail.

"Hey," Naomi grins, trying to convince them both out of the awkwardness that shrouds the enclosure. "I brought food." She holds up the brownies as a peace offering, and is ushered inside, Addison sweeping the snack out of her hands and taking it into the kitchen to find plates and utensils. Naomi follows her friend diligently, remarking over all of the changes she's missed out on.

There are still a few toys scattered across floor, the house impeccably clean for such a chaotic mess it must be. But more importantly, there is silence encasing the walls. "Where's-"

"Napping," Addison fills in before the question can be finished. She tries to smile but fails horrendously. She's so sick of being second guessed, or being given the third degree about where the girls are or why they are there and how long have they been up alone playing that she could strangle someone-preferably Mark.

"It's nice," Naomi tells her, slipping onto the couch, cradling her sweet treat closely. Suddenly, she can't remember how to talk to her best friend. They've become so consumed and wrecked by life as of late that conversation feels forced no matter which direction she tries shooting off in. She goes for work and receives a longing glance, Mark a glare, and the twins staunch silence.

"I- I'm going to go check on Kennedy-" Addison blurts out, well aware that it's time for her pill, and that if they stand any chance of starting to work then she needs to be taking it as prescribed.

"I'll come with," Naomi nods.

"No!" Addison yells, causing her best friend to stumble back against the couch. "I mean- tha-t's not really necessary. Stay, relax. I'll be right back."

"I don't mind," Naomi informs her, standing tall against the screech that is still bouncing off her eardrums. "I haven't seen her in a while anyway."

"I, uh, okay," Addison gives in grievously, face dropping as they climb the stairs. She needs to dash into the other room, she needs to be better.

Five days and counting and so far she sees no changes. The only thing different is she constantly feels like she is stuck in a cloud, mind so fuzzy that Mark repeatedly has to snap her out of it. She's always two steps behind, but it's for a good cause. The lack of sleep, the agitation doused in her tone, it will be worth it.

"Addison?" Naomi asks for the third time, watching the redhead lean against the door absently. She's never seen Addison this out of tune, this calmly distraught, it's alarming.

"What?"

"Did you hear me?" Naomi questions, not sure what is happening. They're still standing next to the nursery, Kennedy still peacefully asleep.

"N-no," Addison admits. She hasn't heard much of anything the last few days, a constant source of tension between her and Mark.

"I was wondering, since you can bring her home now, what you were thinking for names?"

"Bring who where?" Addison shakes her head, fingers rolling the hem of her shirt rhythmically.

"One of the twins, Mark said- he told you right?"

"Home," Addison repeats, her eyes opening wide. It's not time, she's not ready yet.

"He didn't tell you," Naomi sighs. He was practically leaping off of chairs and screaming it across the halls when Charlotte called him personally. She assumed he would have at least mentioned it by now.

"No, I guess he forgot."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Because Pete asks too many damn questions, and because he sticks his nose where it doesn't belong, Addison clears herself to drive, having decided her body is fully healed and will not interfere with her road rage. She stops in the first spot she can see, dutifully grabs the baby in the back of her car, and storms inside. Thankfully, Dr. Atwater is just back from lunch and not yet with a patient.

Addison slams the door in fury, and throws the bottle of pills against the couch. "They don't work."

Jake looks up instantly, confused and then resigned. He had a feeling she'd be back. "They do work, I know you know that. It just takes longer than a week to get your system to respond."

"Oh, I'm responding all right. I haven't slept in days."

"I can switch your dosage. It's a guessing game."

"I don't have time for you to play detective! I am out of time. Fix me."

"Addison, please sit," Jake instructs, giving a quick glance at the baby she tossed down by the door. There's an immediate resemblance, but having had his own children he knows that that child is far too old to be hers.

"I can't!" she shouts at him, panic setting in quickly. Her heart rate hasn't dropped since Naomi left last night, and she waited out an entire ten hours to be here. The pent up frustration is begging to explode. "There has to be another way."

"There are alternative options," Jake nods, watching her pace the room frenzied, frazzled. She's generally very well put together, but lately, she's a mess. "But you'll need a different doctor. I have a friend-"

"I don't have time for your friends of friends," Addison sneers. "Please," she begs when his face hardens.

Interest overwhelms him, he can't control it. "What is this about?"

Addison breathes deep, her releases short, gapped. Her chest pounds angrily in protest as she marches along his rug. Finally she sits, curling her knees together, arms resting in a heap over them as she slowly folds herself together, head hanging. "I was going to be such a good mom, I was...it's not fair. I wanted this so badly, I always wanted kids," she gulps, tears pouring out onto her jeans. "But I'm not ready yet," she sniffles. "They can't see me this way, please, please..."

"Addison, breathe," he warns belatedly. She gasps and sputters, clutching at her chest as it tightens. He sees the drive in her eyes, he pressing urge to escape. How he ends up in a heap on the floor with her, he doesn't know, reactions followed without much thought. She claws at him as he presses her closer and finally there is easement into the remorse. He hears her apologize profusely, feels her shaking hands against his chest, but she makes no great effort to rearrange her limbs, to stand.

Professionally, he should straighten this out. Personally, he's afraid it may do more harm than good.

"Jake, I need a minute-" Violet rushes in, eyes trained to her cell phone that counts down the minutes of lunch she has left before she has to return and diagnose other people's problems when all she can think about are her own. "Addison."

Addison closes her eyes tightly, hoping to disappear. Violet did tell her to come, she didn't tell her to end up entangled on the floor.

"Jake," Violet stammers on, watching him help Addison stand up, brushing himself off.

"It's not-" Addison begins but it cut short by another voice.

"Addison was experiencing some symptoms that required-"

"Confidentiality," Addison chimes in gloriously saving herself.

"Right. Violet I will be with you in a minute, if you can wait." Jake sits down, trying to remain as cool as possible. He watches her leave as Addison gathers her things, not noticing the baby babbling away in her seat. "We aren't done here," Jake tells her sternly.

"We- I am done," Addison reveals, looping a purse around her arm. "I'm sorry I interrupted your afternoon Dr. Atwater. Sorry about..." she motions at the rug, "that."

"Addison, you already are a good mother," he says softly when she reaches the door. "Believe that, the rest will come with time, and give the medication a chance to work. You are okay. I want to see you on Monday."

Not astonishingly, Monday comes and goes without her noticing.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark dances along the hallway of Oceanside, bubbling inside and out. After two incredibly successful surgeries and an impressive consult that even drew Dr. King's attention he is finally getting to the one thing that he has been waiting on for weeks now. A is coming home. He's spent the last four nights slipping out of bed when he's sure Addison is asleep, and working on the office turned nursery downstairs. It's a rather tiny room, and double doors make it awkward but it has enough space for the two cribs he labored over, a changing table, and a rocking chair he is positive Addison would love, if she loved anything anymore. She's a different story though, he reminds himself.

Though he was drawn to the footballs, helmets, and cars that adorned many blankets and sheets that he's seen over the last few days, he stuck to a simple green and lavender that isn't too frilly nor too masculine. He likes to think it's a good balance, he likes to think that he hasn't wasted nearly a week on something that will instantly be redone when Addison snaps out of this latest funk.

While part of him minds her retracting when he reaches out to hold her at night, while his mind is telling him he shouldn't put up with this nonsense, the greater part of him is still too elated about their pending nuptials and the almost life they are building each and every day. It's unideal, but they deserve a real chance, even if it must come a rock-bottom point in time. So he's giving her more leeway until he gets fed up and starts yelling about how he is pulling the majority of the load. But it doesn't mean he isn't seeking out advice on how to handle it without going off and screwing some nurse to relieve the tension.

"Hey Sam, you got a second?"

"Yeah," Sam smiles genuinely, checking his watch just to be sure. "I just saw Addison in with Naomi, she's looking good."

"Yeah, uh...that's kind of what I wanted to talk about."

"Sure," Sam nods knowingly. He leads Mark toward his office for more privacy, both of them smiling when Addison looks up from her seat in front of Naomi. Sam sees an old friend, Mark a woman who looks so socially awkward that she may give herself a heart attack. They haven't been out of the house that much since she had the twins, telling himself that she needed to be resting, but she seems to have forgotten the effervescent demure that screams Addison. "So," Sam acknowledges. "Addison."

"We're taking one of the babies home tonight," Mark sighs. It's why she's there, having had been picked up by Mark on his quick lunch break, and has been making the rounds through her old haunts for a few hours. He suggested she take a nap on her couch if she was tired, but she insisted that she was fine.

"That's great," Sam tells him.

"It is," Mark agrees, "but...I don't know how to explain..."

"Try me," Sam encourages. "I offered to let Naomi move in with me and it's been weeks and no answer. She runs in the opposite direction most of the time, but then she shows up after work with enough clothes to stay the week. Women."

"She loves you," Mark murmurs halfheartedly. He wishes that was his only problem. "I think Addison...is depressed or something. Not like I've seen her before, not...like when Derek-it's not the same...and I..."

"You want to help," Sam finishes for him, "But you don't know how, and you're afraid for the first time in your life that a girl may leave you before you get a chance to leave her."

"You need to stop hanging out with Violet so much," Mark rolls his eyes but confirms Sam's suspicions.

"Talk to her," Sam rubs his hands together. "I think that's your best option."

"What are the other options?" Mark asks out of curiosity. Talking about it sounds nothing short of horrible.

"Nothing good. I mean, you could ignore it and let it grow, or you could leave- just talk to her Mark. She likes you the best of all of us. Always has," Sam smirks. They go way, way back, and he has a niggling the first time the group was together that there was going to be far more to Mark and Addison than anyone would be okay with.

"Good luck with Naomi," Mark grins, "she's crazy."

"That she is." But Sam wouldn't have it any other way, much like his friend who is headed out to face the music.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Are you okay with this?" Mark croaks as they come to a halt at a red light. They've been at the this intersection for three rounds now, and the silence is killing him.

"Do I have a choice?" Addison smiles lazily. The last few days have felt a little better. She even managed to get herself into organizational mode and tackle the closet. There are still moments where she feels like hiding in bed all day, or bursting into tears for no apparent reason, but true to his word, Jake had a point. The medicine she knows is not a cure all, but it takes enough of the edge off for her to feel like functioning in the real world once more. The bigger issues, the anxiety attacks, the dreams, they remain just at bay. There will come a time for them to be dealt with, but she's talked herself into starting slowly. It was half the battle, the attack plan.

"Addison-"

"I'm scared," Addison laughs nervously.

"Me too," Mark breathes, relieved at the final connection. He's noticed tiny changes over the last week, her receptiveness to his conversation and general state of attention, but he can never be too sure what is happening. "We can do this," he says strongly, removing his hand from the gear shift and giving hers a gentle squeeze.

"Remind me of that when we are both still up at three in the morning, okay?"

"Will do."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Name them," Charlotte demands. She wants the damn birth certificates to say something, the very fiber of her being is revolting against sending home a child with no name. She holds the papers out to Addison and then yanks them away, placing them behind her back.

Mark looks between the pair helplessly. They haven't talked about names, the car ride over was the most she's ever talked about either baby. He hasn't even found the balls to bring it up yet. Between feeding kids, cleaning kids, and getting kids to sleep they don't have much time on their busy hands. However, Charlotte looks determined and for as fierce as he's ever seen Addison, he's not sure she could win that battle in the state she's in right now. He caught her crying in the car on the way over after their short talk churned back into quiet, and she's hand his hand clenched in hers ever since they got out of the car. He swears he can feel her pulse racing. "Addie, do you have anything in mind?"

"I can't....I don't know," Addison forces out, nostrils flaring in her mass of vexation.

"Then you aren't taking her," Charlotte enforces, backing herself up against the incubator.

"Fine," Addison complies, turning toward the door.

"Wait!" Mark yells, grabbing more than a few glances in the process. "Charlotte, get out. Give us a minute." It's an incredibly tender moment, he doesn't wanted ruined over pettiness and shallow games.

Addison finds his hand again, desiring the support she knows he'll gladly give. She hasn't let her eyes leave the poster about vaccines above the tiny border on the wall. "Mark," she whines.

"You never thought about...naming kids with...him?" Mark asks desperately. All he has is a stockpiled version of the many flavors of women he has bedded. He doesn't want his kids to be named after any of them.

"They're Derek's," Addison whispers, finally looking down, really looking for the first time. A mess of dark hair, tiny squirming fingers and legs, pale skin, and the undeniable aspect of blue eyes she used to know very well. They're everything she ever imagined they would be, and she wishes instantly that Derek was here to share this with her, to talk her off the canyon she teeters over. It's just names, she tells herself. Then again, it's their names. "Shepherd," she breathes. "I want...maybe Montgomery-Shepherd."

"That sounds good," Mark says quietly, not wanting to break her exploration. He watches her approach the first incubator, scrutinizing every inch of perfect skin. He really doesn't care about their last name, they are his, and he is theirs. Derek told him to watch over them, and he intends to do just that for the rest of his life.

"I don't know," Addison tells him, watching the baby girl in front of her stretch out, opening her eyes against the light and startling at her presence. "What...would...do you think-"

"It's your call Addison," Mark replies, witnessing her hand gently brushing the impossibly smooth palm of her child. It's the most balanced he's seen her in weeks, nothing short of a miracle. "I'll like whatever you pick."

"Time's up," Charlotte announces, waltzing back into the room. "So who do we have in here?"

"Charlotte," Addison squeaks abruptly.

"Yes?" Charlotte asks, looking up, no longer willing to bide time to someone who she owes nothing. Technically, this should have been done weeks ago, but she held off. No longer.

"No...Charlotte," Addison says, voice unwavering, fingers tracing a tiny pattern from her baby's wrist to elbow. She isn't swaddled tightly, which Addison assumes to mean that she dislikes it enough to cause a disruption so loud that someone has no choice but to correct it. She's learned something, picked up on a trait. It wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. "This is Charlotte."

"Charlotte," Mark repeats, testing it out on his tongue. He's dated many Charlottes, but this one holds greater meaning than all of them combined.

"Ok then," Dr. King smiles, proud to be sharing the room with another. She scribbles down the information. "A" finally has a name, one befitting her, she thinks. "Middle name?"

"I- uh..." Addison racks her brain, trying to think of something that goes together with it correctly. "Presidents Mark, name some."

"What?" Mark asks, steering himself towards lonely B whose name will probably be decided on another day.

"It's tradition," Addison tells him. One she never thought she'd be participating in, but tradition nonetheless. Her fall back in a place of great need.

"Well...Kennedy," Mark shrugs, finally putting two and two together. "Washington, Adams, Roosevelt, Hoover...Reagan, Clinton, Bush..."

"No," Addison replies. None of those are right.

"McKinley," Charlotte pipes up from behind her pen. She's had them memorized since 3rd grade, an odd quirk, the least she can do is help. Her obsession with history is finally useful.

"Charlotte McKinley. Works for me," Mark shrugs, looking to Addison for guidance. It's a little weird, but he can live with it.

"Ok," Addison whispers entranced with the being in front of her, one that was once a part of her. For as much strength she is gaining daily, the medication slowly unwinding, she still isn't the one to lift the baby out of her home and place her in the car seat on the floor.

She's not there yet. But for the first time in months she believes that she could be. She could be that mother. The one who colors with their child on ocassion instead of always watching out of the corner of their eye. The one that plays dress up too, who gives special treats for no reason, and never forgets to pick her little student up from school. She wants it so badly it aches within her chest.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I did something," Mark confesses when they get home, the house quiet and dark, both Kennedy and Ellie safely tucked away with the Aunt Naomi for the evening. Originally, Mark wasn't comfortable with the idea of just them and the infant, alone, but he has since decided that it's for the best. There's a level of agitation missing in Addison when the other two aren't around. She's almost serene without them, and Mark begins to wonder just what it is that he has done in his quest to help.

"Something bad or something good, because I don't think I can handle something bad today Mark."

He takes her hand hesitantly, his other wrapped around the handle of sleeping Charlotte, who apparently loves car rides. The door to the nursery falls open easily, he's not sure if Addison ever used it for more than storage. He gives her a few seconds and then asks, "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," Addison replies, overcome with an odd sensation. She neglected to realize that they would even need another room, completely forgot about getting anything new, assuming doltishly they would use the stuff they had upstairs for Kennedy. And just as quickly as she rose, she falls. Her mind seals off as she investigates his swirling border and careful placement of furniture.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Three hours later they settle into bed, Charlotte safely tucked into the bassinet Kennedy once used. The sweet darkness cloaks them both, lost in their respective worlds. Mark contemplating when they will have to wake up again to feed, if Addison wants to try breastfeeding or if they will need to get more bottles and a live-in dishwasher/cook while their at it. Addison is paralyzed with new fear now that her daughter is home. There are so many things she could screw up and Mark only has three days off. Then she's on her own.

It's surreal, this moment has been so out of reach until now.

She rolls over cautiously to face him. The light peeking in under the blinds illuminates a very sleepy silhouette. Chills sweep over her bare arms, causing her to reflexively curl into him. His arms feel receptive and she pushes further, wiggling into the nook under his warm neck. The sheet bunches around her right ankle, but he tugs the blanket he was using over them both with a light grumble that makes her smile, lips stretching against his stubble.

"Thank you," she whispers, toes curling when he drags a finger along her barely clothed spine.

"Welcome," Mark mumbles, pulling her closer, relishing in the wonderful feeling of her molded against him. There are times when all of the arguments, all of the lonely mornings, and all of the silence are voided out. Tonight is one of those rare times for him.

"I mean it, thank you for everything Mark...I'm a mess...I know I'm a mess." She wriggles closer, clutching at his shirt.

"Not a mess," Mark replies half-awake, hoping this doesn't turn into a full-blown serious conversation that he will need to be conscious for. Girls always seem to click on at night.

"I...I've been taking pills," Addison tells him honestly, her conscience demanding she clear the air. "I think they're starting to help a little...I'm trying."

"I know you are," he says soothingly, rubbing her back in earnest now. He slowly starts to slip back off to dream land, everything slowly falling into place. And while he wishes she was comfortable enough to tell him outright before it had to go this far at least it was nothing major. At least she acknowledges the disaster zone she's been lately, even if he'd never say it to her face. Sam probably had a point when he told him to talk to her, but it can wait. He's content to hold her for now.

"I want to be better," she confides.

"We'll get there," he promises, hands coming to a rest against her, mind daring him to turn off for the evening.

"Promise?" Addison asks wearily. She used to people walking away, so accustomed to being left, that the stability she cherishes is also the thing that perpetually threatens her into constant consternation.

"I promise," Mark soothes her. They said they would be more open, more ready to share. But saying and doing are vastly different things and he's had his fair share of steps backwards too. If not physical, emotional. He's thought of leaving more than once, used it as a tool to comfort himself when things at home get too extreme. Love, he decides, does illogical things to him. Or maybe it's just Addison. But it's been worse, it's been more pathetic, him chasing her across the country and practically begging her to come back. This should be cake.

"See you in a few hours," Addison whispers, breaking into his cycled thoughts.

"Night," Mark whispers gruffly, pressing an indiscernible kiss atop her tousled hair. Finally, for what feels like the first time in years, his eyes fall gracefully shut, rest an probable certainty.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

A/N: I've always maintained that this will be fluffilicious at the end, and frankly, it's all downhill from here. There will still be some adjustment issues and the like, but nothing near the magnitude of what I've done. So...if you have anything specific you would like to see or have them do, let me know. You all deserve a reward and the next few chapters aren't really fully outlined. Thanks for reading, and enduring. :)


	41. From the ties that you've started

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
_**_Now we're stuck in this together  
And I don't think I can run  
From the ties that you have started  
From the sins that we've become_**_  
_****_"Please Don't Go" - William Fitzsimmons_****_  
~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"We're never going to sleep again," Addison whispers against Mark's bare chest, her voice barely registering over the screams a few feet away. A small part of her takes part in the victory dance, she did say this would happen after all. Then again, she was speaking about both of them being home and annoying. But that's neither here nor there.

"I'm too old for this," Mark grumbles, rolling away from her, learning after the first two times that Addison isn't going to make a move for Charlotte. He understands her hesitance, but he's tired and cranky and he really wishes she'd step the hell up so they could take turns swaying around the room trying to figure out what's wrong this time instead of just him being stuck with the inconsolable, heart breaking screeches. Not even Kennedy sounded like this. Tortured, he'd swear.

Addison hasn't closed her eyes since they got into bed, her eyelashes brushing against his taut muscles with every blink. The baby in Mark's arms was fed an hour ago, changed the hour before that, and has slept approximately two hundred minutes out of the night, minutes she watched painfully tick off the alarm clock. She stares at him in the dim light cast over the room, a warm yellow glow illuminating a scene she once would have swooned over for days in another life. Charlotte, in her meager weight, looks like a doll. A red-faced, flailing, angry doll that is.

Addison has heard the horror stories from her own (step)mother, the tales of how she was needy and temperamental, a force to be reckoned with since day one. Or technically day seventeen, when her father gained full custody and her real mother shipped off to an unknown location, never to interfere. Then again, leaving her in the questionable care of Judith, was something that the court should have taken into account before they decided that her biological secretary of a mother wasn't good enough. Regardless, things appear to be coming full circle. Rounding in the high pitched noises that bounce off her ear drums, the cringing, and the chant of 'make it stop' that keeps floating through her head.

"She doesn't want me," Mark says loudly, praying that this nonsense doesn't wake up Kennedy or God forbid Ellie, who needs all the sleep she can get lately.

"Maybe she's hungry," Addison mumbles back, rolling over and sitting up to face him.

"Just hold her," Mark urges. He has a nagging feeling that the connection that Charlotte wants is with her mother, or her sister, both of whom are presently unavailable. And as his best efforts continue to fall short, the feeling of failure and subsequent panic mounts.

"I-" Addison begins but then decides not to finish with that she can't, because she can, she's just continuously choosing not to hold her daughter. It doesn't feel like the right timing, she feels like an impostor. "Maybe, put her right here again," Addison instructs, smoothing the comforter down. She can handle Charlotte in front of her, letting her playing with her fingers until she gets sleepy once more.

Mark obeys, not because he wants to, but because he thinks anything that could stop the screaming should be fully pursued. Charlotte kicks the empty air, landing on her back, one of her little purple (mismatched, thanks to Mark) socks coming dangerously close to falling off. Old Addison would have already had Charlotte pressed against her, singing softly, dancing in the moonlit room. New Addison is gently talking herself into touching the baby, her hand hovering over the white material covering Charlotte's stomach. Mark surrenders first, giving the baby a finger to hold while looking around the bed for a discarded pacifier.

"It's...here," Addison offers the yellow plastic up, plopping it into Mark's waiting palm instead of giving it to the baby herself. There's an invisible force field that she just can't seem to break into. She never thought she'd be this uncomfortable around her own children. Or any child for that matter.

Mark watches Charlotte concentrate on sucking and clenching his finger simultaneously, a feat he's sure. How she manages to whimper pitifully with her mouth full is beyond him but she does for over twenty minutes, until he just wants to pick her up and plop her against Addison, holding her in place if he must. He's surprised how needy she is, how clingy. But he's never really done this before so it's mostly just exhausting.

He falls asleep before he even has time to think about closing his eyes. Addison never does.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

On their third day of walking nightmares, Mark drops Ellie at school and nearly dozes off at the wheel before stumbling into the house and collapsing on the couch, the television distant noise. But no sooner does respite come than do the cries from upstairs. He waits ten minutes to see if Addison going to do anything and then angrily marches up only to find her bent over the bassinet that he placed Charlotte in over an hour ago. "Please stop," he hears her whisper, Kennedy making work of the pile of toys on the floor by her feet.

He swoops in to save the day, yet again, Addison trying to casually lean against a wall and hide her shaking hands.

"Sit down," he demands.

"Mark-"

"Sit the hell down," he repeats forcefully, way beyond aggravated.

"Don't talk to me like that," Addison warns meekly. She's not doing it this way. She'd yell back but she lost the energy pre-requisite for that days ago.

"Addison, I'm tired and for as much as I love you- just sit down," he says once more, pointing at the unused chair in their bedroom that generally holds discarded clothing and lonely halves of outfits. He doesn't even blink when the tears build in her eyes and she refuses to budge. Gently, juxtaposing his tone and demeanor, he lays Charlotte down on the bed and sidesteps Kennedy who hasn't even looked up during their squabbling. The child loves chaos, he is positive.

"You have to try in order for it to get better," Mark explains, grabbing her arm tightly and easily moving her toward the chair. He stands in front of her, the back of her legs nudged up against the clean fabric, daring her to stay upright.

She flinches when he kisses her forehead, and he can't say that he blames her. The mood swings out of everyone in the house have been completely unbearable. Surprisingly, Kennedy seems to be the least affected. Mark's theory is that she enjoys having someone else to share the duty of being noisy at all times with. "You can do this."

"I can't," Addison replies coldly, enraged by his ridiculous treatment. He's been hot, frigid and everywhere in between since Charlotte came home. And she still hasn't managed sleep. Her brain is a hot-wired mess of confusion and clouds, her body dripping with used up power.

"You can and you will," Mark demands, turning away from her to get the baby that she painstakingly brought into this world. The baby who she wouldn't speak of for fear that it would set something off. Charlotte who has ceased crying maybe ten times since he's known her, is back at it again and the inside of his skull feels like it is being branded with a cattle prod, he can feel his brain cells surrendering. He can sense Addison burning a hole in the back of his neck, her eyes fixed in a permanent glare as she refuses to lift her arms to support the baby when and should he choose to set her down. She's statuesque, jaw tightened, arms stiffened in fear.

So he takes the responsibility of cradling Charlotte against her mother on his own, tenderly pushing them together until Addison's hand flinches out of natural reaction and comes up to support Charlotte's hatless head full of dark hair, her other arm winding itself along the baby's back.

"See?" Mark grins proudly, Charlotte quieting instantly against the heartbeat that she has known her entire life. He was right, but it's going to come at an unbearable cost. He's saving one and risking the other. Not something he took into account before survival mode kicked in.

"Get out," Addison seethes, clenching her teeth, fingers painfully still. She's afraid to move an inch to the left, to the right. She doesn't want to stand, but she doesn't want to be locked into sitting here all day either.

It wasn't supposed to be like this- forced and wrought with emptiness. She wanted it on her own terms, when she was ready. She wanted tiny bursts of explosions, something so deep it moved her to tears. She wanted to hold her child and know that she would rather die than have something endanger the life that she loves beyond identity, beyond understandable terms.

But it's not there. Nothing relaxes into that carefully allotted space that she's been saving for this exact moment, taunting and teasing.

"Get out," she repeats, a little louder this time.

"Addison, I was trying to help," Mark elaborates, but the cement still fashion of her form tells him that he isn't going to get anywhere logical with her.

Addison finds Charlotte's struggling eyes as Mark's feet hit the first step. She's seen the baby a hundred times in the last three days. She's heard her even more than that, and touched her a few select instances. Thick hair by the tons, tiny fingers, a rounded stomach and spindly legs. They're all features she recognizes, that her brain tells her belong to her. But now, all six pounds in hand, is the experience she has been dreading.

She feels absolutely nothing, forced or otherwise.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Some women have a hard time connecting. Addison hasn't had the opportunity to really bond-"

"She has," Mark interrupts, because he's not about to continue on in this fantasy where Addison is a blameless victim. It's a problem, yes. It's one he's willing the work through with her, yes. But he won't do it if they aren't going to be truthful about the events that have taken place.

"There's a lot going on," Violet diverts.

"She's on something...I don't know what, she said it was helping, and...I don't know. One minute she's herself, the next she's gone somewhere. She can't focus," Mark groans, turning the volume down on the television so he can hear himself think. After Addison kicked him out he thought a nap may be the best avenue of choice, but then the doorbell rang and it's been downhill ever since.

"It takes a while," Violet says warmly. "Give it time. Be patient. I trust Jake, you should too."

"Who?"

"The therapist I recommended to Addison, Jake Atwater, his practice is down the street-"

"She's seeing someone?"

Violet keeps herself in check, avoids the eye roll that is begging to break free. She's starting to think that maybe rotating turns on who stops by on their lunch (Sam, and Naomi the days before, Cooper and Dell later) may have not been the best game to participate in, not that it was a choice. "Mark, it's not important. Sometimes people are ashamed, it's...the important thing is that she's getting help, that she wants to receive help. That's huge...some people never are able to even take that step."

"Yeah, I guess," Mark agrees, scratching the back of his head. And because he's human, he can't help but wonder what else she's been hiding. "I feel like I don't even know her anymore."

"Mark," Violet repeats sternly, catching the brief flash of anxiety swipe over his face. "She needs you. She needs support."

"I know," Mark replies halfheartedly. And in one turn there is nowhere else in the world he would rather be, but in another this is starting to wear him down. Still, Violet has to say that Addison needs him, heaven forbid Addison herself let on to that little fact. And for as strong as a front as he puts up, slowly but surely he is being whittled away. He can't pretend that she says "I love you too" every time she looks the other way when it needs being said. He can't keep ignoring that she'd rather hide in the bedroom than come downstairs and participate in anything that could be construed as family related. And he can't help but notice that the ring he selected is no longer residing on her finger, that she hasn't mentioned a word about the wedding she should be freaked out about planning.

When he finally escapes Violet, after assuring her that he would tell Addison to call her (or Jake, because word of mouth is quick and apparently Addison has missed every single session they arranged for), Mark tiptoes back upstairs. He winces as the bedroom door swings back with a loud creak, but is relieved to find Addison curled up on the bed, Kennedy laying with her, slobbering on a chunk of her hair. Addison however is not actively engaged in what is happening because if she was she'd realize that her precious red locks are being drooled on and are matting, knotting under Kennedy's care.

He checks on Charlotte first because he can't not. It's habit. It's funny how life changes like that, he thinks. Months ago he was passed out on a hardwood floor, years before leaving bars with women whose names he still can't remember, if he even knew them in the first place. Now, he's kind of a father, and he's proud of that. He has that in this mess, and he won't let her take it away.

"I don't know what to do," Addison whispers, stealing her hair back and offering Kennedy a stuffed toy to chew on instead.

"About?" Mark questions, dipping down onto the bed, taking her usual side.

"I haven't slept in seventy some odd hours, I haven't showered. I don't remember the last time I ate something that you weren't practically forcing down my throat, and I don't know what day of the week it is anymore."

"Naomi said it's like this in the beginning. It'll get better," he tells her, not exactly believing it himself, but still taking her hand supportively, playing with the sprawled fingers above where Kennedy is lounging.

"I can't keep taking...it..." Addison gulps. Because she doesn't sleep. Because she can't think. But more importantly because holding her child for the first time felt similar to holding a block of concrete in her arms and trying to spark some sort of connection. She's had more of a rapport with babies she's just delivered than she did with Charlotte and it can't continue to be like this. If she is to get the dream life with the close to perfect family than she has to be able to love her child on another level, to want to be around her. "And I don't know what will happen when I stop."

"Close your eyes," Mark says gruffly, his voice scratchy from overuse.

"You think I haven't tried that?" Addison snaps back, pressing a palm into her forehead. "I want to sleep," she stresses, "I can't. Physically...I'm...I can't Mark, and I can't be around them like this. I don't remember what we had for breakfast, or lunch-"

"You didn't eat lunch," Mark remarks, looking over her shoulder at the alarm clock. "It's only 10 Addison."

"See?" Addison huffs, throwing her arms above her head, accidentally whacking them against the firm headboard. "It's...I can't operate like this, literally, I cannot see patients this way."

"We don't have to worry about that for a while," he reminds her, not liking the shocked face he gets in return. They haven't really discussed how much time she's taking off, and nothing has been drifting through the halls of the practice lately so he figures they're safe for a few more weeks. He hears her sigh at the ceiling before he finds something else to say. It's not like there is a quick fix here. "We can go...there, see Jake-" he pauses when her eyebrows rise in question, "Violet mentioned...maybe he has something different."

She can feel her face falling in defeat, a hand rising to nervously twist her wet hair. "He'll want to talk, and I can't talk because I'm not sleeping and I can't think like a normal human any longer."

"Addison-"

"I'm a zombie. A useless zombie," she decides dejectedly, rolling away from him, facing the bassinet that she has come to loathe.

"You aren't-"

"I don't even want to touch her Mark, what kind of a mother doesn't-never mind."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Thanks," Mark mumbles, carefully cradling Charlotte and simultaneously shutting the front door behind his guests. "She's...up there," he points toward the sky and sinks down on the couch where he is practically living, fumbling for the bottle on the end table.

"You go," Violet asserts, nodding at Naomi with a comforting smile. "I'll come up when you're done." Violet clears her throat when their coworker disappears. "Mark, what happened?"

"I need to go get Ellie," he murmurs, offering Charlotte to Violet. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I don't know how to do this," Violet calls after him as he grabs the keys off the kitchen counter.

"She's forgiving," Mark smiles at the pair. Hell, he's managed to dress her right maybe once, but she's a pretty good sport about all his shortcomings. Aside from the crying, he'd say she's the most wonderful infant he's ever encountered. "And loud," he adds on for good measure, fair warning.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Addie," Naomi states, poking her head into the room, her best friend curled up on the bed facing the large windows on the other side of the room. The blinds are drawn, the room encased in the effervescent orange gleam from the sun's rays trying to gain access.

Addison frowns as she feels the bed shift under the new weight, and suddenly her bangs are being brushed behind her ear, her head stroked repeatedly in the silence.

"You know, the first day I was alone with Maya, the first day Sam left me to go get food...I almost dropped her. Head first. And Sam came home, and I was a mess, Maya was fine, but...I may as well have dropped her, because I felt...awful. Horrible. And I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to do this, what a disaster I had gotten myself into. For a long time," Naomi pauses, noting no change in Addison, "I was so sure I was going to be a failure, that I would break her or harm her...but you get the hang of it."

"You're an amazing mother Nae," Addison says without thought. Naomi is the mother, nurturing, giving. Nothing like Addison has known but everything she wants to be.

"Well, not quite, but...I do my best. That's it Addie, give it what you've got, and the rest, it'll come."

Addison rolls over, instantly missing the contact she's broken. "I don't feel anything. When I hold...her, it's like...someone else's baby."

"She's definitely yours, have you heard the set of lungs she has?" Naomi deflects. That wasn't the real issue. Charlotte King would have killed someone if there was a weird baby swapping incident.

"I need Derek," Addison croaks, taking the pillow from behind her head and burying her face in it. Suffocating doesn't sound like such a horrible thing right now, she'd finally get some rest.

Naomi swallows heavily, buying time. She's shocked how much the thought of Derek being dead still cuts, how deep it runs for her, how much worse it must be for not only Addison but also Mark. "You don't need him Addie. You're stronger than this, I know you. I know you don't need a man-"

"He never got to see them, hold them Nae, he never got a chance...and...I don't...I can't. This is so..." Addison stops herself before it all begins again. She'd trade spots, lie in his grave, if that were possible. He'd be better for them.

"He's," Naomi exhales, "I have to believe...he's seen them. He's here," Naomi says foolishly, pressing her hand against her friend's chest.

"He's dead," Addison says stiffly. "And...what do I say when they ask why they look like no one in this family? What do I say, 'Oh, yeah. Mark's not really your dad he's just the guy I cheated on your father with...and then stayed with...and then got back together with after the divorce...and then your father and I...but then he died in a car crash....and now Mark's here again, but you can still call him Dad. Sorry your entire life has been a lie?'" That's her story, not theirs.

"It's complicated," Naomi acknowledges, "But...you have a few years before that will happen so why don't we shelve it, and work on what we can. One step at time, okay?"

And maybe her biggest problem has been this. The accumulation of questions, concerns, fears until they are busting out of the neat little compartments she tries to shove them into. It's overwhelming, having Charlotte home, regardless of the fact that most of the forthcoming problems won't happen in the near future. It's that she's real, not stored in some hospital where Addison can talk herself into denial. No, Charlotte makes her presence known constantly, and it's much too much. With or without Mark. It nearly makes it worse, how at ease he is with this, with her.

She's falling apart, ripping at the seams, and he hasn't run off yet. That in itself is horrifying.

"I don't know where to start."

"I'm thinking a shower would be a good place," Naomi nods, taking in Addison's rumpled appearance.

"It's that bad?" Addison questions, wondering how Mark can stand it.

"No, but...you need a few minutes. So go take them, and then we'll work from there."

"Thank you," Addison grins wobbly, tears that refuse to fall still fresh in her eyes.

Naomi leans in for a tight hug explaining, "Violet is downstairs. I didn't think you wanted to see what's behind that door."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"She's been in there a while," Violet observes loudly, Naomi busy trying to get Charlotte down for a nap.

"She's fine, yes she is," Naomi urges, in a sing-song voice, cooing to Charlotte over the gentle hum of whatever Violet has selected to watch as they kill time. Naomi rubs the infant's cheek, her back, her stomach, trying to calm her into a land of fluffy white sheep and racing stars.

"No, she's not. I'm going to go check on her," Violet tells her boss, sneaking a peek at her watch, noting that Mark has been gone an awfully long time as well.

"Violet," Naomi says after a few seconds. "She's overwhelmed, and scared, and tired...and it's not you per se but I just don't think she can handle an interrogation about anything right now."

"I'm good at what I do," Violet clarifies with a hand in the air. Addison is...difficult for her. Being uncooperative is the main problem. She thinks she could get through to her if only the woman would stay still and listen for half a second. "Very good."

"It's not you," Naomi refutes. Addison needs gentle handling. She's fragile and sometimes Violet, when not in full fledged work mode can be abrasive and crass. It's like smashing a glass figurine with a rubber mallet, not exactly what the situation is calling for. And no one in this house needs Addison raising her voice about anything.

"She needs therapy," Violet states casually staring at the stairs, waiting for something to happen.

"Don't we all," Naomi nods convincingly.

"We should at least make sure she isn't dead."

"Violet-"

"You're mind hasn't gone there?" Violet dares. She saw the look on Naomi's face after Addison "accidentally" got hurt by an alleged piece of glass from a broken vase. She could read it on everyone in the room- Addison can be a danger to herself.

"I'll go," Naomi declares, trying to hand Charlotte back but Violet shrugs her off reminding her that she and children don't really click all that well, minus the one upstairs napping.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison gulps back a fresh batch of hormonal tears, citing the lack of rest and impending insanity as the culprits of her poor self-control. The robe covering her drying skin is cozy and inviting, her bed beckoning her to sit, and stay.

She hasn't moved in the longest time. Her shower took maybe ten minutes, and now she's stuck. She doesn't know how to get up and walk downstairs, she doesn't know how to face that, and more importantly she doesn't want to. What she wants to do is curl up into the tiniest ball possible and lay very still for an impossibly stretched amount of minutes.

She's felt regression since Charlotte came home, and in some sick perverted way she blames her helpless daughter for the landslide. Because the days before her arrival were scattered with smiles, and light kisses from Mark, and some stressed but still available rest. And now Mark is yelling, and she doesn't remember what it is to smile or sleep.

Slowly she turns into herself, the blackness driving her forward. Addison inches up further on the bed, her head landing as it will, three centimeters from the pillow, and she hasn't the strength to adjust or the capacity to care.

And then she waits. Waits for a relaxing force to take hold, to take pity, but it never seems to come when she wants it most. She watches the blinds quake and quiver under the gentle direction of new spring breeze, and imagines the life she should be having instead of the one she's bound to.

"Addison," Naomi whispers, peeping in behind the cracked door to find her friend presumably asleep. She leaves just as quickly as she came, because the nap is needed. Two down on her list, sleep and shower. On her way down the hall she finds Kennedy awake in her crib and plucks her from the spot singing about how she has gotten so big, and wondering when exactly it was that her own baby managed to grow up.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"She's really soft, like butter," Violet remarks, running her fingers over Charlotte's drowsy head, down along her neck, repeating over and over until her tiny eyes fall shut.

"Are you petting her?" Naomi asks, but the front door opening keeps the question from being answered.

"Bout time," Violet accuses, looking up at the jingling keys in Mark's right hand, his other wrapped firmly around a bouquet of brightly colored spring flowers that the florist said most women would love, "something for everyone in there" she said.

"I told you you could leave," Naomi reminds her, spread across the living room floor, playing with Kennedy and trying to remain as ladylike as possible. She's floored by the simple, yet advanced changes in the six month old as she tries to crawl across the rug, her bare knees scratching over the fabric.

"Thanks for staying," Mark mumbles, headed toward the kitchen with his prize, Elianna in tow. He spent the entire way there and back thinking of how he's ruined all of his progress with Addison. Trying to get her to open up only to tell her that she isn't trying hard enough. Forcing her on a delicate subject. He feels like an ass, par for the course in their relationship. But amends must be made, and though he still is resound in the fact that she wasn't trying and that she needed to hold Charlotte, he realizes now that he went about it the wrong way. He needed more tact. Hopefully, the flowers and some carefully worded groveling can repair the damage.

Mark searches for a vase, tearing through cupboards of glass, china, and crystal. Eventually he comes up empty handed. He doesn't know when their house turned into a mess of tiny cartoon cups and miniature versions of cutlery, but it has. He hears Ellie squeal to her Auntie Nae about how she got to help pick out the pretty flowers, hears her ask Violet to play dress up.

It's as good as time as any to escape unnoticed.

"She fell asleep about an hour ago," Naomi informs him as he starts for the stairs, not bothering to analyze why it is that Addison wouldn't be down here with her friends. It seems the most appropriate selection for her behavior lately.

"She's not asleep," Mark refutes, wound around the dark banister.

"She looked pretty asleep to me," Naomi shrugs before turning back to Kennedy, helping her stand on her own wobbly legs as she bounces up and down, her lilac dress catching the puffs of air as she moves, Ellie cheering her sister on a few feet away.

He would explain that Addison pretends to be asleep to evade conversations. He would tell her that Addison may be trying to sleep, but can't. And he would mention that she really hasn't first clue about her dearest friend anymore, but it's not important, so for once he discards a battle and climbs up without another word.

"Addie," he begins gently, noting that she is always managing to face away from him when things need to be said the most. "Look, I'm sorry...for this morning. I was an ass, and...I shouldn't have...done that. It won't happen again. Well, it'll probably happen...but I am sorry," he says, stumbling over a pair of her shoes as he rounds the bed. "You could at least open your eyes so you can see your present."

He nudges her shoulder when there is no fluttering of eyelids, moaning of limbs. One of her relaxed fists is wound in the mess of drying waves attached to her head, but the other one is curled around a very pink stuffed bunny that Kennedy was playing with, nay trying to digest, earlier. Her breaths are deep, even, her green robe coming untied, long legs sprawled over their unmade bed.

There's not a sweep of makeup on her face, she's barely clothed, and the red fingernail polish on her toes has long since started chipping, but Mark's thinks she's never looked more beautiful, and alternately more ridiculous cuddled up to a toy. He snatches a striped receiving blanket off of the dresser and covers what he can of her, just in case she gets cold. Then he places the flowers across the end table on her side, so when she wakes up she'll see them, and hopefully budge an inch in the other direction.

She really has finally succumb to unconsciousness, and he's never been more relieved.

"Ma-rk," he hears being grumbled as he tries to leave the room quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Come back," Addison murmurs, certain that she's not been out for more than ten minutes. The blackout sleep leaves her more disorientated than when she began the endeavor. She settles her head once more on the fluffy toy in front of her and waits for him to return, but she never feels his hot skin pressed against her, never feels his moist breath hiking along her neck. "Mark?"

"You should sleep, I shouldn't have woken you," Mark thinks aloud, looking oddly self-conscious and unsure. He hates that she turns him into a schoolboy with a crush, that the end of her may actually mean his certain demise.

She's always the unstable variable, they just never realized it beforehand.

"I'm up," Addison decides, accidentally biting down on her tongue, the bitter taste of blood drowning her mouth.

"But you shouldn't be," he recites, a record, a song, filing through the known lyrics. His perch on the bed is unexpected but not unwelcome. Addison rolls onto her back with a large sigh.

"Sleeping won't fix me Mark. I don't need rest. I'm not sick," Addison informs him, swallowing a mouthful of salty liquid. This is beyond what eight hours a night can repair. It's mental, and she is drained and the nap was excellent, but it won't make her feel a spark when she holds Charlotte; it won't stop her from wanting to pack up all of Ellie's things and throw her on the next flight out to San Francisco.

"We'll get through this."

"I'm trying."

"You keep saying that," he reminds her, glancing at his watch, seeing that Charlotte will probably be screaming here shortly about the lack of food in her stomach, that Ellie has a packet of homework that needs completing.

"You don't believe me." She doesn't blame him. They're halfhearted explanations. "I'm doing my best," she tacks on carefully after a few minutes of unwavering silence.

"Sleep," Mark whispers, climbing out of his spot and heading back to their guests and the circus that has become their home.

He doesn't believe her, but then again, neither does she.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"He hates me," Addison whispers, looking over her shoulder at Naomi and Mark drooling over Charlotte, and further back at the bustling practice she used to be a part of.

"He doesn't...I don't think he does," Violet stammers, watching the redhead sink down onto her couch, into her personal space. She has no idea why they are here parading around, she hasn't had the unfortunate adventure of running into Mark or Addison lately.

"I'm sorry," Addison mourns, slapping a hand to her forehead. The rest of week was rather uneventful, more of the same, but she knows that look in his eyes. She knows what disappointment is on someone's face, she's experienced it for the entirety of her life.

The one place she never thought it would belong is with Mark.

Because he adored her, and he didn't mind that she was arrogant and occasionally self-serving. She was better than him, morally, in the ways society liked to measure, and he admired her, once. Not now, she fears.

"Addison," Violet begins, on unfamiliar territory. This is Jake's patient, and she's not poaching the crazy, but the opportunity is present. "Is there a chance that maybe you...hate you? That maybe you're projecting this all onto Mark?"

It catches her off-guard, admittedly, the straightforward fashion of Violet's question. Everyone has been so busy tiptoeing around her that it's startling, and it steals her breath for a good five minutes.

"I was going to be a good mother," Addison starts, holding her hand up when Violet tries to get a leading word in, "I was ready- well not ready when it happened- the way it happened. But in my life, I was ready for children. I wanted someone to chase around the house, I wanted parent-teacher conferences and poorly worded flyers on head lice."

Addison catches Violet cringe and run her fingers through the curly mess atop her shoulders as her own lungs take a big gulp of air, hands shaking in her lap. "I wanted a reason to wake up on Christmas, to wake up any day of the week frankly...and I feel like...that's been stolen from me. I have it, I can't appreciate it. It's been taken from me and..." she laughs at the incredulous display of self-pity she's displaying. "there's no one to blame, except me."

"Addison it's-"

"It is. It's my fault I can't hold my daughter, and my fault that Mark questions every decision I make about my nieces. He thinks I'm insane, he doesn't trust me, and that's my fault."

Instead of diving into the wealth of information, the proverbial pot of gold Addison has just tossed out onto the table, Violet asks the obvious, because her nerves are disconcerting, and she's pale, not just from staying inside day after day. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine," Addison groans, spilling from her lips without second thought.

"It's just...you don't look fine," Violet offers awkwardly, shifting closer.

"I...stopped, it's side effects, but I'm fine. I'm good," Addison dismisses. God, she can finally form a coherent thought again. And yes, it's painful, and she feels like throwing up every ten seconds as her body withdrawals, but this was the right choice.

"Stopped...taking your prescribed-"

"Yes, I couldn't...I wasn't sleeping-"

"You have a new baby," Violet scoffs, but she doesn't know that Addison isn't the one getting up for late night feedings, for three a.m. diaper changes.

"I couldn't think." Addison taps her skull.

"You can't just stop-"

"Violet, I'm a world class neonatal-" Addison cuts herself off as she races for the trash can. The 'I told you so' look she receives as she loses the oatmeal Mark practically forced her to eat is not welcome or wanted, but more than warranted. She knew the consequences, she just thought this would be better than what she was dealing with before.

In hindsight, as Violet shoves her into Pete's office for some voodoo holistic therapy, something that won't make her fuzzy and will allow sleep, she realizes that she should have known better.

It's just another notch, another strike, another failed attempt on her part.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You know, you really shouldn't have done that. There are warnings for a reason-" Pete stops at Addison's upturned hand, her eyes clenched shut as he pokes and prods around the office, wracking his brain for ideas. He has things for the nausea, for the aches, things that are naturally mood enhancing, but nothing in this room will cure Addison. She has to repair herself. "Did you consider switching the dosage or even the pills themselves? It takes adjustment."

"Save the speech," Addison quips, taking advantage of his acupuncture table, needles hanging from her flesh as she "detoxifies". She figures she has at most twenty minutes before Mark realizes that she's missing and this all implodes, kamikaze style.

Pete uncaps a jar and sniffs inside, buying time. "Look, you don't believe in this anyway-"

"Can you fix me?" Addison asks seriously, fingering the edge of the bed nervously. "Make it so I can sleep?"

"You have a newborn, I can't fix that," Pete laughs, greeted only by silence. "If you would've dated me we wouldn't be in this predicament."

"I'm engaged," Addison reminds him, staring up at the ceiling. The least he could do is put up a poster for people to read or a bunch of glow in the dark stars in their appropriate stellar assignments.

"That stuck, huh?"

"Could you hurry up please?" He hears her shout as he pulls a few more jars down, grabbing bags off the shelf in front of him. He watches her nose try to curl as he explains what each thing does, how often to take it, and when to call him. He pats her shoulder and feels her cringe under his touch.

No, she's definitely not the same person she was when she arrived. Hell, he's not even convinced she's alive anymore, and he can't help but want to blame Mark for all of this.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to say," Addison warns Mark, lying down on her vacant office couch, the room collecting dust and intricate cobwebs every day it's not in use.

"You should have consulted me first Addison, I have a say in these things. I have an opinion."

"I'm doing what I have to," she says, pointing to the mounds of crap Pete gave her.

"And you'll be damned if anyone gets in your way-"

"It's not a big deal," Addison moans, his volume and pitch much to high for her headache, not to mention the sleeping children a few feet away.

"It is a big deal to me!" Mark yells, grappling with what Pete explained to him. Addison voted that her medication wasn't working. Addison decided she'd stop taking it cold turkey. Addison is an idiot.

"And I said I don't want to talk about it," Addison says forcefully.

"I'm not Derek!" Mark shouts suddenly. "You won't browbeat me into submission. I don't care if you don't want to talk about it, we promised each other that we wouldn't have that kind of relationship."

"Don't-"

"No, we talk about the hard things. We talk!" It's all they have really, all they've ever had. And yes, at the beginning it was annoying and she was whiny, but it's the foundation of the adulterous thing they built, and it can't be traded upon or altered. "We talk about your husband not loving you, and we talk about how our families suck, we talk about my stupid conquests, our commitment phobias."

It's not that there isn't truth in his words, honesty in his voice, it's that she doesn't want to hear it. Because there is nothing more to say on the subject, even if he is angry. What's done is done, so she continues to watch the bumpy patten of the lavender wall until it wiggles and moves out of illusion.

"I need this shit to work." Mark knocks on the wooden table housing all of Pete's potions and spices. "I need you to step up Addison because the system we have right now isn't working, and I'm not Derek. We won't ignore our problems until they fade into something bigger and worse. I need you to be better than what you are, than what you are attempting to be," Mark shrugs. "Because they deserve a mother, all four of them, and you deserve to finally have the family you've always wanted."

"Been working on that?"

"This is not a joke to me," Mark squeaks. Only this woman could make him so damn emotional, perhaps he is more like Derek than previously assessed. "I don't know how to do any of this without you. And I don't want to."

Before he can launch into nuclear mode, melting down his feelings about relationships and children and how he never wanted any of this and it's all her fault, because she didn't already know that, she stammers a wavering, "We're late."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It's been nearly two weeks since she stood in this very spot, willed her mind to just work with her on the magnanimous event. It's been eleven critically heartbreaking, soul-wrecking days with Charlotte at home, and now there will be another.

Another baby to deny, to avoid, to dance circles around but never with. Another mouth for Mark to feed, another set of squirming limbs for him to juggle. And in this moment, she hates that there are two of them.

Most people are elated, albeit nervous, but happy about receiving the news of twins, in her vast experience doing the telling. They want to dress them the same and name them the same, and know that they will forever have another half. But here she stands, lingering in the doorway, pure outrage filling her heart. To make matters completely and inevitably worse they are exact replicas. She can discern no difference in the pair, she's not meant to. And they will scream, and smell, and pull her hair. And Mark will know who is who by the end of the week.

Addison's not sure she ever will at this point.

"So, what's it gonna be Montgomery?" Charlotte King asks, pen poised and ready as Mark gently places B into her car seat, but not before stalling noticeably.

"I was...thinking," Mark jumps in when Addison's deer in headlights look gets too pathetic, "maybe Audrey. I know it's another A name, but they won't be calling you Addison anyway...and-"

"It's fine," Addison decides. They didn't speak in the car, but Mark can have this. They don't need a showdown over something that she doesn't really care about anyway. It's not Candy, or Lemon, or anything else ridiculous so it's fine. And he does need something, she realizes. Something to hang his hat on at the end of the day, and that accomplishment seems rooted in this very easy task.

"Charlotte, can I borrow you for a moment?" Addison asks, guiding her out of the room as Mark situates himself with the last pieces of paperwork. "I was planning on coming back to work-"

"She's just now going home," Charlotte points out rudely, but it isn't taken into account.

"...in about a week or so, I wanted to let you know when to expect me," Addison continues, undaunted by anyone's concern.

"What about boy toy in there?"

"I can't speak for Mark," Addison smiles forcefully and then removes herself to escort their entourage back to the car. It's serious effort to lug the three of them around, Kennedy latched onto her aunt, Mark with a baby hanging from each arm.

They make it out just in time to dash off to retrieve Ellie, Addison's head stuck against the jostling window, wondering if this is what her life is going to be now. School runs, play dates, and trying to fit work in between.

She wonders if it will ever reach a point where carting around her children will feel how she once hoped it would, instead of this nagging interference to her world.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I don't feel like a mother," Addison confides, staring at Mark with the twins, blankets strewn over the living room rug. He has been fun to watch, playing with their tiny feet. It's been a quiet morning, the ocean she's been observing particularly still outside. They seem to have, through many trial and error sequences, found a schedule for all eight hundred of their difficult children. But it still doesn't allow for much sleep, and over compensates with time for reflection.

Because this is the first conversation where she's said anything remotely substantial in weeks, almost since the twins were born, Mark is more than hesitant to turn around, but he does anyway. The words, however, fail him. He no longer knows how to support her, what she needs, when she needs it, how much to administer.

She's completely shattered them, and he allowed it.

"It's...I can't tell them apart," Addison gestures to Charlotte and Audrey, or vice versa because she has no idea. "And I don't know their cries. I don't remember their first baths, or first bottles. I wasn't there. And now...there's this hole. Huge, gaping, black hole. And I can't say that it exists because I wasn't...there for so long, because we can't know the effects of that, but I...don't feel anything toward them. I feel nothing, and it scares me. I'm scared it's never going to go away. I'm afraid that I will be exactly what my mother was because...I can't seem to be anything else right now."

"Ok," Mark nods. He can't understand. They're so wonderful, so amazing to just watch, that he doesn't get it. But she is talking, and that's a major step, Violet said, so he has to shut up. _"Just shut your mouth and hear her out, no matter how crazy it is."_

"Regardless, I need you to stop faulting me for something I have no control over."

"I don't-"

"You do, all the time," Addison stops him. "And it's not helping this...pass. You have to run to pick Ellie up and not ask me fifty times if I will be alright finding a new pair of socks in the event that one gets lost. I'm capable of doing things-"

"You wouldn't come downstairs!" Mark yells, waking up Audrey as she slips in and out of nap time.

"I'm past that, I feel like I'm past that," Addison illuminates, knocking her fists together loosely. She can carry out tasks, she just does them out of obligation, not desire.

Mark remains unconvinced on this front. She seems to be taking Pete's therapy to heart, is really applying what he gave her to work with, but on the other hand she refuses to set up an appointment with any therapist, including Violet. And he can't fix her when she gives with one hand and promptly takes with the other.

But she's communicating what she feels, and Mark notes a strong lift in his shoulders. He doesn't have to guess any longer, and that's somewhat freeing.

"I am so deeply sorry for what I've put you through Mark," Addison squeaks. She's always been sorry, it's just never getting them anywhere.

"I chose," Mark grunts, neglecting the tears that are clinging to her lashes. He hates that their talks always end in hysterics.

"I need you to trust me again," she pleads. "I need you to believe in me again because...I don't, and it's kind of terrifying to be this screwed up and all alone."

"I-" he begins but is cut short by the pager that has been lying dormant on the end table for weeks now. He looks it over quizzically before deciding that it's not just the batteries beginning to short out. "911."

"Go," Addison urges, throat surprisingly tight, burying her face in her sleeve. "We're fine here. Go."

"I can call them-"

"They wouldn't page you unless it was a real emergency Mark, you need to go." Addison smiles weakly, proud that something so monstrous occurred that he had to be called in, slightly envious that she didn't get a page too. She can't wait to get back in the saddle, back into a place where she's the hero, not the villain.

"We were talking," Mark tells her, grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter.

"Don't worry, my craziness isn't going to be gone by the time you get back," she assures him, tightening her grip on the throw pillow in her lap.

True, Mark thinks, but her willingness to speak about it may be out the window. He has to take every advantage that he has.

"They need to be fed in an hour." Mark points at the twins. "And the one on your right is Audrey, she's in yellow, and she likes when you sing to her. And you have to feed Charlotte first because she'll get angry if she has to wait, she's impatient. And Ken should be waking up soon-"

"Making this worse," Addison chimes in. She really needs him to walk out the door minus all afterthoughts, all details, even if she doesn't know any of this information.

"And if I'm not back in time, Ellie has to be picked up at-"

Addison strides toward the door, pushing his strong back along the way, shoving his leather jacket into his hands. "Have a nice day at work Mark."

"Thank you," he beams, kissing her temple, and practically skipping to the car. He's missed this just as much as she has, and while the late night feedings are completely worth it, there's nothing quite like saving someone's life. It's a different rush. Plus, if he had to be completely candid, he could use a break from all the estrogen, specifically Addison.

He needs to regroup. He needs a plan. And he's never as clear as when he's scrubbing out of another amazing procedure.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Ok," Addison says aloud, prepping herself. "I can do this. I can." She shrugs and sinks back down onto the couch, reaching for the remote. She nearly jumps halfway off the couch at the first crackling of noise from the baby monitor that was left discarded, in Mark's haste, ten feet from the living room. She exhales loudly and takes off after the stairs to fetch the missing puzzle piece of this dysfunctional group. But as soon as she disappears she can hear distant cries coming from the other direction. Heaven knows they wouldn't want to give her an easy time after what she's done to them.

"Oh," Addison's nose crinkles in disgust. She has definitely not missed diapers. But moreover Mark shouldn't be allowed to dress these kids anymore she decides, lifting Kennedy free of her crib. "Orange is not your color," Addison tells her seriously, evaluating the giraffes littering the tiny dress that her niece is sporting. "Let's find something new."

She can hear the screams downstairs growing in distress as she rifles through the white dresser, Kennedy warmly pressed against her hip. She finds something purple that will do the trick and reaches the twins just in time for the doorbell to drag her away again. "Coming!" Addison yells, checking over her shoulder to make sure that the baby gate is still secured so the newly mobile Kennedy doesn't get anywhere she shouldn't be. "Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers- I said I'm coming!"

Without finishing her rhyme she grabs the infant within the closest vicinity and rushes to the impatient guest waiting outside. Addison flings the door back aggressively, causing it to smash against the wall loudly, startling the recently soothed baby in her arms. "Susan-" Addison gasps, peering behind her once mother in-law's shoulder to behold the devil. "Mother."

"We thought you could use some help," Susan explains, letting herself in, nodding in affirmation to herself as she scoops up Audrey and cuddles her close, breathing in her irresistible scent.

Addison backs herself against the wall with wide eyes as Judith strides into her life.

"Quite the mess you've made this time Addison," Judith whispers, progressing stoically into baby land, disgust eminating from her pores.

"Some help," Addison mutters, running her tongue along the roof of her mouth in thought. There's really only one way for this to go, as far as her side of the family is concerned, and it's not going to be pretty.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**A/N:** The original product of this chapter was almost 35 pages long, so a lot got cut, moved, and you will see it in the next chapter. And I am well aware that this has a very _Addison, Addison, Addison _feel to it, but Mark will have his moments coming up as well as Ellie. Also, while actual show seems to kill my inspiration every week (hence the monstrous wait here), Addison with that damn cat? Magic. Thanks for reading, maybe I'll actually manage to wrap this thing up before the year ends.


	42. Someone's praying that I might break out

A/N: Three weeks or something? I'm giving myself a gold star, even though my main goal was to get this out before we meet Addison's mother and I had to conform to a character that actually exists. Enjoy-

~-~-~-~-~-~  
Well I've been here before  
Sat on the floor in this grey, grey room  
I don't eat but I play with this grey, grey food  
Desolé  
Someone's praying that I might break out  
Desolé  
Even if I scream, I can't scream that loud  
- Damien Rice, "Grey Room"  
~-~-~-~-~-~

"Look at you," Judith shakes her head disapprovingly. "It's not bedtime Addison." She motions to her pajamas and Addison frowns, feeling the years of unsettled regret weigh heavy on her shoulders.

Addison looks to Susan for help, but her ex-mother in-law is too busy fawning over her new grandchildren to be of any use. With a jolt, Addison is led away by the elbow to the tiny nook created by the stairs and the hall intersecting. Her house is open, airy. She loved that when she moved in. Now she realizes how little privacy it provides for.

Then again, this was always supposed to be her home. This was her place for when the family idea had absconded to younger days, where no man dared become involved. Her space is now infected and overrun by people she never imagined would still be present in her life.

"Why are you here?" Addison asks bravely. She was never one for questioning Judith's crazy antics, it was easier to just let it all be. After a certain point she stopped caring, she just wanted distance from the shenanigans.

After enough visits to the circus it is no longer amusing; it's no longer shrouded in magic and mystery.

"Apparently, this is what good mothers do. At least, that's what I was informed of before I was practically kidnapped and stuffed into the back of an economy jet filled with absurdly rude people for seventeen hundred hours."

Well, as long as she didn't come out her own volition, Addison reasons that the world hasn't started completely spinning the other direction. "How's Dad?"

"Your father is fine Addison, busy as always," Judith smiles cordially, as so often is the case when someone asks about Kenneth, the man who she has taken to seeing with passing interest lately. Their marriage was never winning sort of awards for commitment or dedication anyway. "For god's sake, go change and run a brush through your hair. You look as though you've been dead."

"It's not-" Addison begins, trying to make her understand that no one in the world cares how you look inside your own home, and that Susan has seen her at far worse. Then again, Judith has not. On some level though she's ashamed that her appearance needs commenting on.

"You were raised better than this," Judith interrupts with a stern glare. Heaven forbid anyone try to embarrass her on this already wretched trip across the country. As far as she's concerned California is far too warm for this time of year. She didn't care for it the last time she visited, and she certainly doesn't now.

"Yes, Mother," Addison complies, feeling quite transported back in time. She's no more than six, covered in dirt from her adventures outside, her mother's admonishing brow making it absolutely clear that this is unacceptable when there are dinner guests over.

"Hurry up," Judith hisses, not daring to climb the steps after her, and not budging an inch toward Susan a few feet away. She composes herself with a deep breath, lungs filling strongly, and prepares for a long week.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Did you call my mother!" Addison shouts into her cellphone, speaker-phone on, contraption lying in the middle of their rumpled bedsheets as she tears through the closet trying to find something that will fit. There's still a pound or two that won't budge off her form and some things don't look flawless yet. Generally, she doesn't care but there can be nothing short of perfection when she returns downstairs, Judith won't stand for it.

"Your- mother?" Mark yells back, phone pressed to his ear by his shoulder as he reviews a chart. "Why would I do that?"

"She's here Mark! Here in my house! Again."

"Do you want me to come home?" Mark asks confused, finally grasping his phone and swiveling away from his patient, inches of space between them.

"No! Damn it. No. Ugh!" Addison groans, nails trying to rip her scalp to shreds. She was doing so well. Kind of, not really, but she was on her way to at least fumbling through the rest of the day without Mark. And now she's already gone and called him. Fantastic. "Just...do your job."

"Do my job?" Mark repeats, his burn victim moaning in agony behind him.

"I'm going to have to deal with this," Addison reckons, slipping into a particularly painful pair of heels that will complement her gray dress fantastically. She feels ridiculous, and probably looks it too. Her hair is rushed to a half back stance as Mark yammers on about doing his best to come home soon. She swabs on mascara and is about to reach for the blush on the counter when it strikes her. "Mark?"

"Y-up?" he answers, half paying attention, half focusing on the job she requested he complete. She sounds nervous, which is never a good thing, but amusing just the same.

"Did you call Susan?" Addison interrogates, placing the finishing touches on her face triumphantly, positive that she hasn't even attempted make-up since before the twins were born. She was "living" in her bed, there was really no point.

She's yet to actually be living, but she does play amongst those who inhabit the land lately.

"When the twins were born once, and then when we brought Charlotte home. I meant to call her again, but-Oh, no."

"Oh yes."

"She wouldn't," Mark declares, scribbling into the chart balanced on his knees.

"She has," Addison confirms, hand on her hip. "Why would she do this?"

"I don't know," Mark placates. Susan always has the best intentions in mind, it just usually gets out of hand and sometimes people get hurt. This however, stowing away Satan in her carry on, is another playing field and Mark's torn about not just throwing his chart at a random doctor in the hall and hightailing it out of the hospital.

"This is my hell," Addison whispers thoughtlessly to herself. Her mother, her ex-mother, her children, the other children. Hell, pure and simple.

"Addison," Mark begins to warn her but she stops him.

"I have to go. I've already taken too much time. Bye," she grieves, snapping the phone shut without hearing his reciprocation. There are more important matters at hand.

Mark grins to himself, slipping his phone back into his lab coat. No, he didn't think of the plan, but he wishes he would have. Because if there is one thing that will force Addison to shape up it's her mother.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Take a nap?" Judith asks sternly when Addison clicks her way back down the stairs.

"You ask that like I left you with a serial killer," Addison remarks, breezing by her mother, and catching the "may as well have" that Judith murmurs.

"Sorry Susan," Addison frowns, watching her pull her attention from the two infants next to each other on the blanket Mark spread out before he left. Kennedy is busy drowsily staring at Susan's shiny earrings, embraced by her pseudo grandmother's loving embrace. Her real grandmother has yet to acknowledge that she is alive, as is the general protocol.

"They look like Derek," Judith says dismissively, stealing a chair, and crossing her legs, back arched to an absolutely rigid posture.

"Yes," Susan says softly, running a hand over Kennedy's red hair as she begins to squirm. "They're perfect."

Addison is pretty sure she is supposed to accept the sentiment with gratitude but instead she dashes to the kitchen for stiff drink. She gulps scotch straight from the glass container, washes it down with water, and returns with two bottles of formula prepped and ready. If she could, she'd fix them all a nice cocktail to take the edge out of the air. They'd drink until the backhanded compliments felt like niceties, until the hatred she shares for her immediate family came to a quick rise, hopefully scaring Judith out of ever returning to Los Angeles again.

"Oh," Susan frowns, "you aren't breastfeeding?"

Addison catches Judith crinkle her nose at the hint of a personal subject, something the Shepherd's seem to not understand. There are no lines, no boundaries in their family. It was astonishing at first, then welcomed, and finally as her marriage declined, a horrid trait. "No," she affirms, offering the warm formula to the older woman. Her hand knows better than to attempt to make Judith touch any of the children.

Her mind knows better than to ask anything of her own mother. Those lessons have been learned, they are things of her past, something she never intended to be in her present.

"Are you okay?" Susan asks, rising from the floor with one of the twins, body naturally responding to the small weight and wriggling motions.

"I'm fine," Addison nods, pushing her bangs behind her ear and surrendering to the other twin. She hasn't done this yet. She's helped Mark change them, and held them sporadically over the last few days, but this step has been one she's stumbled over. It's a sacred bonding time, and it's a little too close for comfort. She'd much prefer that Mark be the one stroking cheeks and foreheads, brushing over bulging stomachs encouragingly. It's purely genuine with him.

She's a liar, but it's nothing if not a practiced skill. One inherited from the genes across the room.

"Their names?" Judith asks from the corner, breaking the quiet of slurping mouths and drooping eyelids.

"Charlotte and Audrey," Addison replies catching the not-so subtle eye roll. They aren't names she ever thought of for her children either, but no part of this has been anything she envisioned when she thought of having kids.

"And that is?"

"That's Kennedy," Addison tells her disbelievingly, she isn't catching on. "She was here when you came out...last time. She's...Reagan's."

"Addison," Judith scolds at the mention, "It was a very hectic time for me."

"Yes," Addison acknowledges, falling prey to the suffocating atmosphere again. She doesn't know how time can be passing so slowly. The clock on the wall seems to be moving backwards.

"So, Addie," Susan grasps, watching the heat rise in the room, "Who is who here?" She motions to the matching pair spread between them with an easy smile. There are a lot of grandchildren in her posse, there are a lot of girls among them, but these two will be undeniably special; the only children of her only son. Susan watches Addison's face turn to horror, and understands immediately what Mark was talking about. He wasn't joking with her when she came to visit, and she always knew Addison to be difficult, but she was overboard. And now, she's detached, as Mark put it. So instead of forcing the subject as Judith scrutinizes every detail, Susan simply pulls back the white blanket on her lap and reads the identification tag that has yet to make it off of Audrey's leg.

"Audrey's in yellow!" Addison feels her cheeks blush at the outburst, Judith beginning to rise to consciousness in her seat.

"Susan, if you don't mind, I'd like a word with my daughter," Judith announces, reaching her full height and looking at Addison expectantly.

"Not a problem," Susan smiles eagerly, accepting Charlotte into her crowded lap. She has her work cut out for her here, she's not certain if two weeks is going to be enough time to get everyone in order.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"What?" Addison finally asks after minutes of silence, the waves crashing behind them out on the deck, smashing furiously as the condescending glare mounts its attack a few feet away.

"What do you think you are doing here? What are you trying to achieve?" Judith finally speaks, her tone dredged in disdain, dripping in disapproval.

"I made a life here. You don't have to like it."

"Well, I certainly don't. This is ridiculous Addison. All of you crammed into this tiny little house. You living with your mistress. This is not how a Forbes Montgomery behaves. I won't have you tarnish our good name with your silly little fantasy life. Grow up. Come home. You can have the whole third floor to yourself, and I'm sure that I can find more than one qualified nanny to help out. Surely you don't expect to continue doing this all on your own."

"I am home," Addison argues with a large gulp. The wine in the kitchen is calling her. Pete would suggest herbal tea, Violet meditation, but neither of them understand the storm that is her mother. Hell, she could use a cigarette. Poison is the only thing that helps.

"You live on the beach like a common-"

"It's nice," Addison interjects. "I like the beach. It's calming and I need calming right now."

"I can't support this Addison!" Judith yells.

"You don't support anything I do!" Addison shouts back, her hands flying into the salty breeze.

"You cannot raise those children. It's not your place," Judith elaborates. Granted, she's not on board with any of it, but this is unfathomable. How did her daughter go from respected surgeon to a common whore raising other people's children?

"You raised me," Addison replies coldly. Raised may be giving the woman too much, it implies she may care in some capacity.

"Don't- we aren't talking about that."

"Why not?"

"What I do is none of your business, I am your mother-"

"Oh God, here we go-"

"They should be with Pierce. He is their father, he can provide for them." Judith patiently sets her hands down on her lap, diverting the other topic. It was different then, things were different, and they don't talk about it. As far as everyone out at the country club is concerned Addison is her blood, and they have so many similar traits that no one ever thought to question it. She handled all of the secret whispers, the elaborate stories with painstaking diligence.

"I can provide for them," Addison tells her haughtily.

"Oh Addison," Judith laughs. "You can't even take care of yourself long enough to figure out which child is which. You can't do this."

"I can, I am," Addison fights. She'll be damned if her mother is right.

"You're falling apart, it's unbecoming. Pull it together. Montgomerys don't do this Addison," Judith warns, knowing that her daughter understands every inflection behind every syllable. This isn't about Addison. It isn't about the small zoo inside. There's a reputation at stake, a name that means something more than Addison has ever been willing to grasp. "I'm going back to my hotel to find out when I can leave this wretched town, call me a ride," Judith instructs, watching her daughter tremble as she rises. "And Addison, it's impolite not to ask if your guests would like something to drink. I'm parched."

~-~-~-~-~-~

"You really don't have to do this Nae," Addison says, agitatedly smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her little black dress that hasn't seen the light of day in months.

"I want to," Naomi comforts, "besides, it will be good for you and Mark to get some time away from everyone. You need a break too."

"An evening with my mother is a far cry from the break you speak of. How do I look?" Addison spins halfway, calves already aching with the stinging familiarity of four inch heels. She needs the height advantage tonight. She needs a calvary, what she has in her armory is Mark.

"Cute shoes," Naomi notes, "And you look fine Addie, stop freaking out, it's just dinner."

"You say that because you like your parents. You don't understand-"

"She's not that bad," Naomi plays, she hasn't seen Addison this alive in weeks, even if it is due, in part, to absolute fear. She returns her attention to Kennedy as her friend pulls the pins from her hair and then completely redoes it. "I miss babies," Naomi states reflectively.

"Take one of mine," Addison calls out over the sound of hairspray.

"Don't tempt me," Naomi laughs, easing back into her friendship. It has taken time, and there will be many, many more awkward moments, but for now the temporary hiatus is lovely, and Naomi takes full advantage.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"They have it easy," Sam declares, rolling the bottle in his hands, trying to stimulate Charlotte into taking a few more ounces. Sure, they're outnumbered four-to-two, but Maya was four children all in herself. He always blamed Naomi for her spunk, but he's spent most of the night wondering why it is they stopped after only one.

"Well, the next diaper is yours then," Naomi grins, running her fingers through Ellie's fiery mane, the child curled up in her lap, stumbling through a book that she got from school. She helps Ellie sound out the big words, helps her flip the pages when her tiny hands get too tired to make the effort, and eventually ends up letting her fall asleep across her legs, figuring she could use some human contact. Because Naomi has seen Mark try, and it's not that he's more focused on the babies, it's just that he doesn't have endless energy anymore, and one has to suffer.

"This was always my favorite part," Sam smiles, Audrey passed out on his shoulder, Charlotte on the couch next to him.

"Maya was the cutest sleeper," Naomi agrees. "Her little fists all curled up and the little pout she had."

"It was the only time she was ever quiet," Sam points out. The conversations that girl could have, he shudders at the marathon tea parties he took part in.

"We should have had more," Naomi frowns, cuddling the child on her a little closer, reveling in the sparks. She and Sam have been in a stand off. She's reluctant to give him the power that would come with her moving back in, but she yearns for things to go back to normal. And she'd ask Addison to weigh in, but she's occupied, and the decision is too big to make alone.

"Yeah," Sam pauses awkwardly, it always amazed him when they were thinking the same thing. "So," he smiles wildly, "How much trouble do you think we're going to be in when Addison learns that you invited a boy over while you were babysitting?"

Naomi laughs despite the juvenile attempt, "I'm not sure she'll notice."

~-~-~-~-~-~

"That was..." Mark takes a breath trying to think of a proper phrase to encompass what they've just experience as he juggles the house keys.

"My mother," Addison fills in for him, tossing her head back as his fingers fiddle. She slides to a halt just outside the door, her thumping heart audible. She slides a hand up his chest as he reaches for the door handle, fingers slipping in between the buttons and finding warm flesh. Then she places her cheek against his expectantly, his arms hanging limply by his sides.

Mark feels his mouth dry to cotton as she caresses his abs. This certainly came out of left field, and not wanting to feel disappointed he simply pecks her lips, lightly gripping her waist. "You look good tonight."

"Thanks," Addison frowns, her not-so subtle hint not at all received. He looks good too, mouthwatering good. They're matched in all black, all New York, but no one noticed. "We should," Addison sputters, pointing at the closed door.

"Right."

~-~-~-~-~-~

Addison selects something a little more daring for bed than her normal routine of shorts and Mark's t-shirts. It's blue, lacy, and usually does the trick. But listening to Mark rant on about not being comfortable with the twins downstairs alone in their own room as she is spread over the bed seductively has her feeling like this may all go to waste. And they need this, so badly. As an overly affectionate couple she's struggled accepting the balance between the time he has his hands off of her, and the time he is touching her warm skin. And she can only imagine how he's been doing.

"They're fine, we can bring them up later. They need to get used to it."

"They're only a month old Addison," Mark chastises, unclasping his belt and kicking his pants across the room lazily.

"I was hoping," Addison emphasizes, "for a little time tonight."

"Just means that I have to trip down the stairs in the middle of the night-"

"Mark, I want sex."

"What?" He blurts out, popping out the bathroom with a toothbrush in the corner of his mouth.

"I know you heard me," she responds, pointing to the ensemble, the sharp heels still attached to her feet. She could have sworn that she had his undivided attention at one point this evening due to the cleavage her dress displayed. Maybe she was wrong.

"It's-we haven't," Mark shrugs. He can't even remember the last time they did anything remotely sexual. He can't remember the last time she let him hold her hand for more than thirty seconds. She just doesn't have the urge to be touched lately, and through many months of patience, he's finally let go of his need to coddle her when she hurts. Plus, he's had more than enough extracurricular activities to keep him occupied. Lately, he falls asleep before his head hits the pillow.

"I know," Addison sighs, "And I...don't want you to...you know, do what you do...so I thought...maybe we could have sex tonight."

"Do what I do?" Mark questions, pulling his shirt overhead, not opposed to joining her on the bed. He can practically feel his lungs leap into overdrive.

"This offer will expire, we only have twenty minutes before someone starts crying about something I'm certain, so if you want to argue or debate-" her words are cut off by his attack, and she relishes in the feel of his familiar fingers tracing her flesh.

Mark gives in willingly, his lips finding her neck, stopping only to ask, "Are you sure?"

"It's a good night," Addison elaborates. "Mother and all."

She laughs when he flips her under him, moans when he enters her, and can't keep herself from screaming when her world bursts into a bright mosaic of Crayola colors.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Think we can hide all day in bed?" Mark asks the following morning, engulfing her in his embrace, breathing in the wonderful scent of the hair that he has been missing. It's fruity and flowery and citrus laced in a way he can't explain. The perfect blend and pitch of intoxicating smells. He's actually missed simply holding her; he wonders when he turned into such a pussy. "Addison?"

And as quickly as she rose, she falls back into silence. Last night was a good night because she was out of the house, she rationalizes. She was away from her children, and thus she could breathe. She has officially turned into her mother. And there's no one to talk to because the only person that understood the way that Judith is, the only person who experienced it in its heyday, is dead.

Sleep didn't come easily last night, Mark nearly suffocating her in his relentless grip, returned to time and time again after he got up to deal with one child or another. But he needed it, needs it. Because she's been removed from their relationship, she swore it'd get better, and one of the few things she does know is that she doesn't want to lose him. And she feels guilty for having that sort of want for a man and not her own flesh and blood.

"Addie?"

"Susan is coming by at noon," Addison answers. Susan wanted to make them lunch and spend the day on the beach since Judith monopolized their evening yesterday claiming that she would be departing soon, evidence of which Addison has yet to see.

"That will be nice," Mark answers. His childhood be damned, he feels safer with Susan around. He feels like he has a partner, a friend in the war. Someone to be on his side first, unlike Naomi and Sam whose loyalties are tied down to the redhead.

"I think," Addison starts, feeling the moisture in the corner of her dry eyes begin to build. "Today is a bad day."

"That's alright," Mark comforts, placing a lingering kiss on her hairline. He brushes a thumb along her cheek reassuringly, the sun barely creeping into their room. "Thank you for telling me." It seems so ridiculous, but it's a step, and he has to encourage her, support her, Violet said. It's about learning to be with another person for once, learning to be a semi-healthy relationship. It's about achieving the dreams he now has in place for himself. So he'll listen, and he'll learn to be emotional in outlets other than anger and lust. Mark can survive, he can adapt, for her.

Violet should be billing him, he decides then and there.

"Addison," Mark clears his throat, "Maybe you could invite Naomi over and you girls could go shopping. Get out of the house or something. That seemed to help."

"Sure," Addison agrees easily, slipping away into her cloud.

"The girls all need new clothes I think," Mark says unsure. The twins' pajamas hang off their feet, and Kennedy's dresses are tight around her little arms. He can't recall the last time they bought anything for the growing children besides diapers, it's all he has time to pick up on the way home. "And you know how Mom loves spoiling her grandchildren."

"True."

"We can turn this day around Addison," Mark tells her confidently. "All we have to do is try. And if it doesn't, it doesn't, okay?" His voice betrays him, because he's terrified. Because she's still not exactly logical, but he wants to be on her team now. "We'll just send everyone back to their hotels and tell them to stay there," he grins, attempting to be in charge for her. She's always had the reigns though, so it's a plane of land mines and trick wires all waiting to tear him up. "Okay?" he asks again, feeling her shudder beneath him.

"Yes," Addison whispers. It all sounds like a good plan, she just hopes that once they squirm out of their warm cocoon that he will hold up his end of the deal and not drag her into dinner plans she doesn't have the energy for, or pin her against the rest of the room as he so often does, whether for her own good or his entertainment she's always unsure.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"How do expect all of us to cram into your house? You don't even have enough chairs to host a dinner party," Judith accuses, and she's correct, Addison never meant to have anything other than casual get-togethers in her new home.

"Please just get in the car," Addison says, grasping her purse tighter in frustration. The day had seemingly been turned around. Shopping was, as Mark puts it, cathartic somehow. And even though she feels no connection with the kids destroying the pristine furniture in her home, it doesn't mean she doesn't know a cute dress when she sees one, or cute baby shoes.

Addison, more a boutique person, even managed to make it through the mall with Susan, and took a giant pretzel for lunch, having worked up the energy to laugh and sip at her water in the food court. It was nice to be out in the open, the have the public swarming around their bags, and every time she got a little wayward, Naomi would squeeze her hand and show her another thing she had to have if she was going to survive as a mother. They replenished the dwindling sock supply, found new toys to help Kennedy's booming development, and even picked out a special gift for Ellie, who tagged along on her best behavior the entire day.

Susan lavished the girl's red curls with new accessories, pulling her out of the braid frump, and held her hand tightly explaining that she was a new Grandma and that Ellie could call her Nana if she wanted. And when the day became too much, when Ellie was nagging to be held and cuddled, and Addison thought her ankles might break under the strain of walking all day, Susan declared that it was time to go home, rest, and force Mark to make dinner for them.

"I will not just get into the car," Judith objects, grabbing her coat and purse anyway. "Addison-"

"Look," Addison says forcefully. "I didn't invite you here. I don't expect a thing from you. Ever. You're free to leave whenever you see fit. But since you are still in town for some reason, I'm asking you to come to dinner. And to be civil with the people I have chosen to be in my life. I don't care if you disapprove about my life choices, or my children, or my fiancé. I don't care if you think my home is far too small, that my furniture isn't ornate enough, or that it's wrong that my living room faces the ocean. I'm done. Caring about you, for you. Get in the car, don't get in the car, I don't care," Addison finishes strongly, stalking to the elevators. She can hear the soft clicks of her mother's heels behind her and they spend the elevator ride in a mortified silence.

Addison's never been this wild with her before. She's never said one word about how she feels, because she wasn't raised to feel things. She wasn't raised to be a part of issues. Addison was to watch, to ignore, to pretend, but she's far too old now, and far too tired to keep participating a game she never wanted to be a player for in the first place. The slight sigh that escapes Judith's mouth is comforting, and the revving of the engine of the tiny red convertible she brought specifically to rebel is even more satisfying.

"I only want the best for you Addison," Judith scolds softly as they make a right at a red light. And in her own perverted way, it's the absolute truth.

"As long as it doesn't interfere with your image," Addison adds, a smile gracing her lips for an uncountable time today.

"No," Judith argues, grimacing as she comes face to face with a conversation that's long overdue. "I did the best I could with you Addison. You always had your mind made up about everything. It was all so black and white, and I could never do anything right in your eyes...but I did the best that I could."

"Neither one of us believes that," Addison replies, turning on her blinker and shifting into fourth gear aggressively, her hair flying, tangling behind her in the breeze created by her car.

~-~-~-~-~-~

When Mark making dinner turned out to be ordering pizza, Addison could only watch as her mother squirmed in her seat, carefully slicing the crust with her knife and fork as everyone else let the grease slip down their fingers. She let Sam talk about the new book he had planned, and allowed Mark to dominate the conversations about the kids.

She realizes, as she lies Kennedy down in her crib asleep, that she didn't say much tonight, but that it was okay. Conversation flowed better than the wine with stories Susan concocted to make everyone laugh, and medical cases Naomi scrounged to dress up Addison's departure from hospital life and her transition into a private practice. She was allowed to fill her mouth slowly, sip her beverage slowly, and simply enjoy instead of dread the company of those in her house. Maya even offered to help Ellie into her pajamas and read her a bedtime story so that Mark could have the evening off to play with the big kids.

"You were right," Addison whispers an hour later, the house surprisingly silent, Mark at her side staring contently at the ceiling.

Rather than gloat at her admission, and protest that he is always right, Mark places a gentle kiss on her cheek. They turned the day around. He managed to prove that it could be done. Not every instance will result in victory, but this one will be savored.

Today he is her hero again, he fixed it all, chased the bad away. Today he is worthy.

This time when their lips find each other it isn't forced. It isn't something born of remorse or good timing. They gently explore, mapping out subtle changes, joining in a bliss that only the other can provide.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Thank you for coming...Dr. Montgomery," Charles quickly catches himself. He remembers their screaming match last go around, and he's not about to disrespect the legal guardian of one of his students again. "I called you today because Elianna is in with the nurse."

"What's wrong? What are her symptoms?" Addison spouts, medical mind spinning into overdrive.

"Dr. Montgomery," Charles laughs, looking at the sharp new letterhead on his desk. "Our nurse assures me she's fine."

"Charles, I-"

"She fell asleep in class," he rectifies before the redheaded she-devil in front of him can lose her cool. "Every single day this week," he finishes.

"Oh."

"We weren't going to call you, I know how difficult things have been. Her father spoke with me personally, before he left. But...it's disrupting," he clears her throat when she tries to intercede, "and moreover, it's unhealthy for her. Her teacher said she loves free time, and now she uses it to curl up under her desk. I'm not telling you how to parent your child, but I am suggesting she take an early day, and spend the weekend getting well rested for Monday. We weren't sure if you were aware of the problem."

"She's fine at home," Addison replies without a clue. She can't even remember the last conversation she had with the five year old. She ignored her in the mall and Ellie's always so wrapped around Mark's fingers that there's never a chance at home. "She...we...there's newborns- none of us are sleeping very much, and we've had company all week," Addison admits, gulping back her newfound guilt. It's just another pile amongst the masses.

"I understand," Charles tells her sympathetically. It wasn't all that long ago that he was up at odd hours changing diapers and trying to quell angered screams of frustration.

"Ok," Addison nods numbly. "We should...I should, which way is the nurses' office exactly?" Addison asks, her three inch heels dug into his carpet, a somber look on her face, and an empty heart to match. This was not the way she envisioned today.

As her nerves rise inside the school, she regrets telling Mark that it was okay to send Cooper in his place as he ran off to yet another emergency surgery that Charlotte King said she needed him for. And while it's her turn to officially start work the following Monday, she has yet to find a time and way to tell Mark. Judith left the day after their "dinner party", without promises to call and Susan was forced to follow two days later, yesterday, when one of Nancy's twins broke her ankle and needed a babysitter.

Addison regrets trying to step up so soon all alone. Maybe she was better off saying that she was trying without attempting to prove it. She needs more than a driver in this situation. She needs advice, a confidante, a partner. She can't parent 'her child' without him.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"You must be Elianna's mother," the young woman across the room greets, stuffing backpacks with notes home and forgotten lunch bags.

"Addison," she corrects, extending her hand, noting all of a sudden that her quick fix does nothing to remedy the issue that she is Ellie's aunt not mother. But she finds she doesn't particularly mind, in fact she's rather partial to the teacher's innocence in all of this, and she certainly doesn't miss the pitied looks and somber pats on the back. Maybe in some parts of the world what she is doing is considered admirable and above and beyond, but she has no choice here. Her hands were tied by Mark, secured by Pierce.

There was never a decision to be a part of, never a question to be answered.

"I'm new," the teacher explains, "and I know I may just be overly concerned with Elianna, but I thought you should be aware-"

"It's nice," Addison eases, "that you worry."

"Yes well, not all parents think like you," she smiles. "Anyway," she clears her throat, "I put all of the handouts we did today, as well as her books in her bag, so you should be ready for the weekend."

"Thank you," Addison replies, attempting to remember how to interact with people outside of her family and close friends on a normal level. This woman has no idea who she's dealing with, she hasn't heard the water cooler gossip yet about all of her students and unfortunate situations they've landed themselves in. It's so freeing, to be herself, in a mind and body that she doesn't recognize any longer.

"She's very bright," the teacher points out, in return gaining a blank stare. "I know I'm supposed to tell everyone that their child is a genius who will grow up and cure cancer but...she is something special."

Addison's teeth sink into her bottom lip intuitively. She really wouldn't know the first thing about Elianna and her schoolwork. Mark handles that; Mark handles everything. She assumed that she was doing all right, but it was only elementary school, there were so many harder things to come in her life. A world without cancer though, Addison can dream that, and it's beautiful. Defeated by her lack of ability to relate she nods knowingly and offers, "I should...get going, get her home."

"I understand," the teacher says, turning back to the group of children who are filing into the room from what Addison can only guess was one of their many recess breaks. "It was a pleasure meeting you. I look forward to the remainder of the school year."

"Likewise," Addison replies, detaching a drowsy Ellie from her leg, noticing how she doesn't say goodbye to any one of her classmates.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Mister Charles says I have to go home," Ellie announces jovially, renewed by her release, hoping into the car.

"Mister Charles must really like you. I never got to go home early from school," Cooper tells her, the words falling out of his mouth like butter. "Sometimes I even had to stay late."

He's so naturally equipped to deal with children, it makes her envious. She can do babies. Babies with life threatening conditions and charts attached to their lives. She hears them discuss teachers and classroom pets, positive this is most undivided interaction Ellie has received since the twins arrived, even with Susan around. She's already failing and she hasn't even properly gave it her all. She doesn't understand how people do it, divvy their time magically.

"Here we are," Cooper says quietly, Ellie asleep, head against her window, the other three silent in the back of the silver SUV.

"Thank you," Addison says, monotone and stunted. A big day out, she supposes.

Her first real day alone, uninterrupted, is more accurate. She knew it would have to happen. Inevitable, from the moment Charlotte King lied and said she's be okay without him for a month. They're doctors, surgeons, their life is not their own, their time goes to the highest bidder.

And she misses it. Misses cutting, misses the blood splatter on her clothes, streaking her gloves. She misses talking to people who don't know anything about her except that she's going to save them. She misses the blind trust involved, the heroism of every story.

Mark still doesn't trust her, despite their attempt at conversation on the matter. He gets up every single time someone cries at night, regardless of whether or not she wants to help or tells him that she doesn't need him. He takes Ellie to school, he picks her up. Half the time the other three go along for the rides. Every time he leaves the house, whether it be for diapers or a gallon of milk for Ellie's fruity cereal, he asks if she is okay, if she can handle it.

And it's a bit infuriating. She can take care of children. She can do this. Because she can do anything. If she has to, backed into a corner, push coming to shove. She's managed far more difficult procedures, faced far worse odds, and overcome.

It may be competitive, it may be for the wrong reasons, but she's resolved that it won't hurt. It may just be the thing the doctor ordered. It may be the only thing that pushes her through the rest of the day without wanting to skulk off and drown in a bottle of vodka.

She's going to prove Mark wrong, and more importantly she will prove her mother wrong.

~-~-~-~-~-~

The extended nap got them to two in the afternoon, but no phone call from Mark has Addison concerned that she may be doing the dinner and bedtime routines solo tonight. She's tried leaving him a patient and easy going message, instructing him to call when he gets a chance, but so far nothing has happened.

Ellie heads toward the living room, her fists buried in her blurry eyes, uniform wrinkled from her quest for sleep. She crawls onto the couch, avoiding the two newest babies in the bunch, and wriggles her way onto Addison's lap. She feels her aunt tense up before jerking the blanket she trapped over both of them and relaxing back into the cushions. "When is Daddy coming home?" Ellie asks, looking around the quiet house for other signs of life.

"Elianna, your daddy left you here with me and Mark, remember?"

"Yeah," Ellie yawns. "Mark said I can call him Daddy. Cause Scottie was making fun'of me cause he calls his daddy Daddy, and I was calling him Mark."

Addison's not really sure when this started, or that she's heard him be referenced to as the father of the household, but it seems best not to mess with the fragile situation, she'll ask Violet later. She can feel Ellie squirm under her chin and finally settle when she comes up with an answer. "Your dad is not Mark Ellie, but if you want to call Mark that then it's your choice. You don't have to though, just because the kids at school make fun of you. You don't ever have to do anything because someone makes fun of you, you understand?" Addison questions. It's an important life lesson, one she wishes someone would have bestowed upon her at some point before she made a fool of herself in sixth grade. And then again throughout high school.

"Can I sleep over at Scottie's?" Ellie asks next, already haven moved forward with her thoughts. She tightens her grip on the neckline of Addison's gray sweatshirt, and yawns loudly.

"Scottie, the kid who was making fun of you?" Addison asks, trying to clarify. The world does not work like this, really. Except Mark always made fun of her, and here she is chasing after him.

"He's my boyfriend," Ellie smiles, remembering the cookie he gave her at lunch last week when he declared her to belong to him. Scottie said that's how his daddy got his mommy.

"I guess...We...I should talk to Scott's mother first, right?" Addison questions the child in her arms. She doesn't know how these things go. Judith never cared, she's not sure Judith ever knew when she was out of the house as compared to when she was up hiding in her room. But she doesn't want to become her mother, and she said she'd take better care of them than Pierce does. Besides this is what Naomi would do. And that's her only model to go off of.

"Scottie," Ellie giggles, laying back down, but still needing to cuddle after nap time. "Can we call his mommy now?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Addison replies, thinking back over the course of the day. The phone call that interrupted her tense morning alone, the hibernation that the entire house has been participating in up until now. Logic says to keep her home.

"But Daddy said I could and I was a good girl with Nana!" Ellie mounts her argument, at a much louder volume than her previous conversation, her sweet demeanor abandoned.

"Alright," Addison shrugs, watching the five year old lose her sleepy composure. "We can call."

~-~-~-~-~-~

It was until Ellie ripped Scottie's phone number out of her backpack, instantly undoing the chaos that lived in there and spewing it out onto the hardwood floor, that Addison thought she was just playing along. She never contemplated actually having to do the duties she agreed to; it was all to get her to shut up about it and not go into whiny freak out mode. But one awkward conversation with a perfectly nice woman later, ("Hello...I'm...ah...Elianna and Scott are in the same class at school and I was...wondering...") one more unreturned call to Mark's cell ("Just wondering if you are going to be around for dinner..."), and one difficult feeding later Addison is about to have to make good on her deal.

Addison marches up the stairs, to where Ellie announced that she was headed to pack her things (taking after her mother, four suitcases full of stuffed animals and toys). As she returns books to their correct shelves and places tiny shoes into the bag in their place she realizes that she has no clue about how to get everyone out to the car and through the Los Angeles traffic without serious problems.

And coming home to diapers that need changing and babies that need baths sounds incredibly unappealing. She yearns to be washing off blood and guts instead. So she resorts to the bottom of the barrel. "If you wanted to stay here tonight...we could have a sleepover."

"I want a sleepover," Ellie grins.

"You want to stay here and have a sleepover? Watch movies and eat ice cream?" Addison bribes guiltily, a smile tumbling off her lips. "I can paint your toenails a pretty pink."

"Yeah!" Ellie exclaims, running back to the bed, dropping her stuffed dolphin as she goes. A dolphin that Mark knows she can't sleep without for some reason. He's stopped thinking it reasonable to ask why about any of her odd quirks.

"But then you can't go to Scottie's, okay?"

"I wanna go to Scottie's," Ellie complains, shifting away from her aunt, seated on the low rise bed.

"What if you get scared and have bad dreams?" Fear is Addison's next stop, she won't say it isn't pitiful, but asking Cooper or Sam to come over and drive her somewhere is a level of pathetic she just can't handle for a second time in one day. And there has yet to be a safe babysitter. She could call a service, but then Mark would get upset and be confused if he got home before her.

It's hard to move on melting ice.

"I won't," Ellie proclaims, opening her dresser and digging through clothes.

"Ok," Addison sighs, rising from her spot, the obscene tangents of purple in the room beginning to make her ill. "I'll go get everyone ready."

"I don't want the stupid babies to come!" Ellie screeches suddenly, stopping her aunt in the doorway.

Addison spins around in her slippers, mostly unimpressed, but sympathetic. She doesn't want them to come either, because it adds about thirty minutes of preparations she wants no part in. "They have to come. There's no one here to watch them."

"Auntie Nae-"

"Aunt Naomi is at work. If you want to go to Scottie's then we all have to take you over there, including the babies," Addison says firmly. Maybe this was the only push Ellie needed. Instead she gets an indignant huff of acceptance and is left once more establishing the quickest way to get this all over with.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Addison returns home with a splitting headache, the other three girls behind her still screaming, managing strength she didn't knew that they possessed. It's been more of the same since she shifted into drive and pulled out of the suburban area miles away. Addison sinks down into the plush leather of her seat, and lets her head thunk against the steering wheel, inadvertently causing the horn to sound.

She honestly thought she could handle this, but as she dissolves into fresh tears, she realizes that she underestimated how outnumbered she was. She's perfectly fine with raising the dead, literally, but after forty minutes of nonstop cries she's ready to rip her hair out. And now she gets to somehow pull herself from the vehicle, truck everyone inside, and figure out what it is that is wrong, if it can be figured out to begin with. Because sometimes they just like to cry, and she knew that going into this, but she's too tired for it to be okay for another second.

The knock on the glass peels her away from her thoughts of throwing in the towel, and she sniffles adjusting the key so she can roll down the window.

"You need help?" Mark asks. "I heard the horn."

She wants to crumble into his arms, tell him all about her horrible day, and soak his shoulder, but her pride won't let her budge. She climbs out of the vehicle without a word and throws a bag over her shoulder reaching for a carseat to unbuckle. Kennedy gives a big toothless smile when she sees Mark and it makes Addison want to go jump in the ocean.

"Bad day?" Mark asks once they get everyone inside, Audrey in his arms quieting down just from his presence. But he doesn't notice anymore, he just holds them and works it out. He's more focused on the tears coursing down Addison's face as she digs through the silverware for a tiny spoon to feed Kennedy. "You're going to have to talk to me eventually." He's careful about asking where Ellie is because she's clearly not present, and despite most of his actions, he did hear her when she asked for his trust back.

He hadn't realized how much he was questioning her, how much he was hovering. He was trying to look out for the girls, but he hurt Addison in the process. Collateral damage, just the way he operates. His whole life has been about screwing up, but with Ellie and the babies...he just is doing something right, and it feels good to not be the fuck up anymore.

"I can't do this anymore," Addison reveals, shoveling a spoonful of orange goo into Kennedy's mouth, not bothering to wipe her chin when she spits half of it back out as she attempts to swallow. "There's too many of them Mark."

"It was only one day. It will get easier," he assures her, stealing a kitchen chair and dragging it over. "They'll get older and more self-sufficient, and before we know it we'll be driving Ellie off to college."

"I don't want them here. And yes, it's selfish, but Mark I can barely handle the two that aren't mobile. I think they are better off with Pierce, he-"

"No. No, we agreed Addison," Mark stops, yanking the bottle out of Audrey's mouth suddenly, sending her into a fit. "They aren't going back. We aren't throwing them around like dolls."

"I never wanted this! You tricked me into it." Addison tosses the half empty jar into the sink, enjoying the sound as it shatters. "And I had to go to Ellie's school and pick her up, and I had to meet her teacher, and I had to talk to Scottie's mother. I'm not ready for this, I don't know how to do any of it."

"Neither do I!" Mark yells, offended. He thought they were building the dream life, instead he's been betrayed by her words. He thought he was doing what was best, and it turns out that she doesn't care, never has.

"You can't just toss a person into this Mark, it's not fair!"

He watches her stalk off, unable to chase her because the children around him are imploding and he knows better than to aggravate her fragile temper. He shouts a feeble, "Addison!" and then surrenders to the hurricane.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"How long," Mark demands, observing Addison curled into a ball on the bed, vaguely reminiscent of the last few weeks. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"

And Addison evades, rejects participating in his interrogation. "I have to be back at work on Monday, and then what? Who will watch them when you get called in?"

"I'll call Naomi and tell her we need more time-"

"I said I would be back to work on Monday," Addison illuminates, digging herself a bigger hole.

"And when exactly did you plan on telling me this? As you walked out the door on Monday?" Mark feels the anger building in his boiling blood. He's four steps away from punching a wall, one from walking out. If he didn't have things keeping him here, if he wasn't so certain that it was her psychotic ass that he wanted to be with forever, he'd already be one foot out the door.

"Does it matter?"

"To me," Mark paces. "Yeah, it matters."

"All we ever do is talk about it. Nothing happens! I'm tired of pouring myself out to you and then watching things go right back to how they were."

"Then let's deal with it," Mark decides, clapping his together. He's good with taking action.

"I want to move. You said to wait, so we waited," Addison shrugs, their argument completely losing its momentum as Mark does a 180, screwing with her plans to yell and scream until they fell into bed.

"I don't think it's a good idea to attempt right now-"

"We need space," Addison argues. "I'm tired of stepping on crayons and tripping over shoes."

"Fine," Mark relents. He can't win every battle.

"We can move?" Addison asks unsure, flipping over to face him, kicking out of the mound of blankets she was seeking refuge under.

"Yes, to my house. We haven't sold it, there's more space, and it won't be a huge production. But there's conditions."

"Oh," Addison frowns playfully. "Really?"

"You have to decorate the nursery this time. I'm not picking out anymore girly shit. And I'm not painting any rooms, so hire someone. And I'm not lugging that huge dresser downstairs with Sam so you'll have to hire someone for that too. And-"

"I'll handle it," Addison interrupts. She can orchestrate a move. She may not be able to handle four kids all day long but she can handle grown men in work uniforms.

"And I'm tired of getting messages from Pierce on my phone because you won't return his calls. You will sign those papers and get them to our lawyer to look over on Monday," Mark asserts bravely.

"Mark, they belong with their father. I know you think he's incompetent but so were you. And you learned. Someone has to give him the chance to learn, and it's not like he's beating them-"

This is Mark's breaking point, the reason why he doesn't want to discuss any of it. Because it's more than personal, it's about more than Pierce not teaching Ellie to tie her shoes. Children intrinsically know when they are unwanted, and he wants to avoid anyone ever having to feel like that again. They should be with people who want them and he isn't satisfied that Pierce does. "He...doesn't...He's not good with them."

"A lot of people aren't good with kids," Addison refutes, gesturing to herself. "You can't save every kid from a less than perfect parents. The world isn't fair, we know that."

"They deserve better than some jackass who can't remember to pick up his kids after work. They deserve to be remembered," Mark says sullenly, climbing onto the bed. "If either one of them gets seriously injured and you don't have legal custody Addison..."

"Then you sign," Addison tells him. "If you want them that badly, we'll tell Pierce to change the paperwork and you...can have them."

"He won't," Mark murmurs.

"We can try."

"When we get married it's all going to be the same so why does it matter who signs?" Mark dares, the topic of marriage somehow a now outlawed thing in their house.

"I don't want to kids I gave birth to, okay? Right now, I want nothing to do with any of them, but I think it would be easier for me...if there were a smaller amount of whining mouths. Maybe they could come and spend weekends with us. I don't want to cut them out of your life Mark, I'm just saying that...I can't do this, and I need you to accept that I'm still...broken."

"You really think it would have been worse than this...if you had kept our kid instead?" Mark asks childishly, looking out toward the dusky sky. There are no stars here tonight.

"Mark don't- that was a long time ago...things were different then." Nothing could be worse than this, however, and he knows that without her saying it. He knows how hard that was for her, regardless.

"All I want is a life with you...but you push Addison, you push so hard."

And just like that he's successfully made her feel like a villain for voicing her opinions. But, he has a point. And he's hurting far more than he lets on so she digs deep into her soul, into her heart to give something genuine.

"I always thought a winter wedding would be beautiful. The snow and the lights. Winter..."

"In New York," Mark finishes. He can't imagine taking the dive anywhere else. Something told him he'd never be the guy to ditch off to Vegas one Thursday afternoon.

"And we're moving," Addison tacks on, making sure he doesn't forget.

"And we're keeping all of the kids," Mark replies.

Addison takes an unsteady breath, they're back at square one. Judith was wrong about Mark, and her friends, but she was right about the house and she's right about Pierce. "I can't-"

"We'll interview for a nanny all weekend. Call the best agencies in town," Mark negotiates. "Or we'll see if Charlotte has room at the daycare at St. Ambrose and they can go there."

They were raised by nannies. By people with names that weren't Mother or Father. They were born to people who saw them less than they saw their evil country club friends or international business associates. She always said she wouldn't do it, she wouldn't jump off the cliff of having someone else witness her child's first steps and first words, but it feels like there is no other option now. Before she can answer though, the phone is ringing and Mark's already made a move for it, successfully ending their negotiations.

"You need to go get Ellie," Mark says after he hangs up.

"I can stay here. You go," Addison tells him, already in her pajamas, hair tied loosely behind her head.

"No, Eleanore said she had a bad dream and keeps wanting her mother. That's you now."

"I'm not-"

"You are," Mark nods. Because in ten years Addison is going to be the one taking her shopping for homecoming dresses, and teaching her about boys and their evil ways. She'll be the one squealing with Ellie about her first kiss, her first boyfriend. And in twenty years Ellie may not even remember another mother besides Addison.

She's become the replacement, an unwilling fill in.

"Go," he instructs. "You can do it."

Addison slips into the closet to find something presentable and when she returns she finds herself wound in Mark's strong arms, his breath trickling down her bare spine. She senses it's more about him than her and submits, placing her head on his shoulder like she always does, fingertips playing with the tufts of hair on the back of his neck.

"I'll be here when you get home," he reassures, pulling away sheepishly, hand caught in the cookie jar. Even when Addison is terrified and darting from her positions she's still the best source of comfort. "We're getting there Addie, it just...isn't as perfect as we always thought it would be."

"Yeah," Addison mourns. Being with Mark was never easy, but it was easier than her neglectful husband, easier than going out and trying to find someone new. "I do love you, very much," Addison whispers, words vomiting from her mouth in repentance.

"I know," Mark smiles. It never gets old hearing it. He never thought he'd be this idiot. He never thought he'd be smitten just like Derek was all those years ago.

"Okay."

"Good luck, and remember..." Mark smirks, "You owe me mind-blowing make-up sex for picking that fight when you get home."

"Yeah well we'll see about that," Addison warns, heading downstairs. She's going to be lucky if she doesn't doze off at the wheel. Today has been completely draining.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"I'm sorry to have called so late," Eleanore apologizes, inviting Addison into her dimly lit home. "She just came out and wouldn't stop crying. I tried everything, but then I thought I should probably call you-"

She's interrupted by Ellie dashing through her entryway and out onto her aunt's legs.

"-she is pretty upset," Eleanore finishes as Addison lifts the redhead up, letting her curl her legs around her black coat. "I'll go grab her things, maybe we can try again some other time."

"Ellie," Addison soothes, the child incoherently sobbing into her shoulder. "It's okay to get scared on sleepovers. Happens all the time."

"Yeah?" Ellie asks, watery eyes spilling over onto her cheeks every time she blinks.

"Even to big kids," Addison answers. Parts of this come so easily, most of them with the children that aren't hers.

"I for-got Gummy, and Scottie said I could use his teddy. But I could not sleep and Scottie was snoring."

Addison nods and pushes Ellie's head back to her shoulder, knitting her fingers through the tangled mop of curls. She has no idea who Gummy is or that this child had a safety blanket of sorts. Chock one up to learning.

She gladly accepts Ellie's purple bag when Eleanore returns, thanks her, apologizes, promises to arrange another play date and dutifully smiles when Eleanore tells her that she has a lovely daughter. Everyone seems to get it but her, still. And Mark's so confident that it will come with time that she's afraid to tell him that she feels no more sentiment, no more attached to the twins than the day she first met them.

But there are things we bury for one another, there are things we shoulder for the sake of shouldering, so Addison simply tucks Ellie into the car and jumps aboard with everyone else's naïve sense of hope and wonder.

Tomorrow she'll wake up and do it all over again, but maybe one day she'll feel like a mother when she has to go save a child in the middle of the night instead of an impostor cloaked in designer clothes that have yet to be destroyed by grimy hands.

Maybe one day she'll feel like the person everyone keeps confusing her for.

~-~-~-~-~-~


	43. In silence is where you're found

**_~-~-~-~-~-~  
I've got doubts  
And they talk so loud  
In silence  
Is where you're found_**

When she comes around  
I'll be ready  
When she comes around  
I'll be strong  
"When She Comes Around" - Ben Rector  
~-~-~-~-~-~

The mounting cries pull Mark from his dream laced sleep, filled with wondrous blurry edges and a general sense of contentment, and shove him violently into the wild eyes of the woman he has chosen to spend the rest of his life with. And the scene he wanted, her swaying over the bedroom, red hair lit with the moon, it's there now. But instead of silly songs there's silent pleading. She looks tense instead of relaxed, her own cries louder than whichever child she has her grip on.

And while he'd love nothing more at this point than to stick her with it, make her figure this motherhood thing out (how hard can it be if he's doing it right), he also knows of the noise complaints affecting Ellie at school, and he carries with him the guilty recognition that it's early Monday morning and Addison needed a good night sleep to be a normal, maybe even compassionate doctor to her patients today.

So for them, for Ellie, and for who he is guessing is Charlotte, he rises, tightens his sweats when they sag and offers his services free of hassle, free of obligation. "I got it," he whispers, leaning over to kiss her cheek, pretending not to notice when she pulls away and stumbles down the stairs.

When Addison returned Friday with Ellie in tow, Mark plucked the child from floor and helped her find Gummy, as Addison stood awkwardly in the hallway watching. And while he's heard her numerous calls to moving companies around town, she's not talking about what she's scheduled or learned. And even when she thinks a winter wedding would be nice, he's just excited that he's getting to marry Addison (Derek's Addison), and yet the engagement ring is still missing.

But they're moving, somewhere bigger, and it's the tiny hope that maybe somehow that will make Addison feel better that has Mark pushing through this. It stops him from snarking over her decision to return to work without his consent, because it still hurts to watch her float through the house detached. And ultimately, if leaving for eleven hours a day to tend to other people's problems will help Addison get over her own then Mark can't dispute her nontraditional methods.

After all, she knows herself the best. So he takes what little he holds secure about her fluctuating moods and digs his hands into her shoulders as she searches through a kitchen drawer for a pen. "Come back to bed Addison."

"I'm not tired," she refutes, dropping the crossword onto the kitchen table, gentle rain sprinkling the sand outside with its incessant giving.

"Beds aren't just for sleeping-"

"Mark," Addison warns, holding up a hand, tears recently dried on her cheeks from her failed adventures in mothering. "I'm not in the mood and I have a busy day ahead of me and all I want to do right now is sit here with my coffee and figure out what 23 Across is."

"Enrages," Mark answers, looking over her knotted back hair.

"Excuse me?" Addison questions defensively. If she was going to make a list about the things that enrage her, it'd be a mile long at this point.

"12 Down, 'Sets off', enrages," he clarifies, fingers wandering along the base of her neck as she tries to squirm away. "I can help, I am a known genius."

"Get your own," Addison says, placing her forearm over the black ink so he'll scamper away. In truth, she needs a moment to swallow what happened upstairs. She needs a few seconds to keep talking herself into this, to remind herself that sometimes babies just cry and that it's not her fault, that she did everything she could, that Mark didn't have to swoop in and save the day (the simple fact that he can save the day is not something she can even begin to deal with at this point).

Because for every step he gains as a makeshift father, another pound of pressure grows; the more her furry (at herself, misdirected more often than not) mounts.

"Get your crossword," Mark instructs, snatching her pen away and placing it between his teeth. She squeals when he lifts her off the chair she was calling home and snags the blue ballpoint away from his lips as the coffee sloshes onto the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"We are going back to bed. You can play your game, and drink your coffee there."

"And you-"

"I'm going to hold you until I fall asleep again, whether you like it or not," Mark says confidently, headed toward the stairs proudly.

"Mark-"

"Addison," he sighs, the charade fading instantaneously. "Can't you just go with it? I'm trying here."

"Hit my head on the doorway and I'll stab you with this pen," Addison threatens, but then stuffs her head under his chin trying not to quiver as she thinks of them toppling backwards down the stairs, no one in the house old enough to save their gaping head wounds as the blood seeps deeper into the hardwood and stiff carpet runners.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"See? It's not so bad," Mark prods, his head comfortably resting against her chest, occasionally copping a feel. He can almost sense her rolling her eyes.

"No, it's not," Addison agrees, setting down the hardback book, cover now etched with short answers. True to her word she drank coffee, and finished her puzzle, but now she can begin to feel the heat of Mark's neck, the enticing scent of his skin, and it causes her eyes to droop in the dimmed room.

Before she knows it there's an alarm going off in the distance, one she recognizes as Ellie's, who insisted she have her own, not that anyone is sleeping lately. "Damn it!" Addison curses, violently pushing Mark off of her and dashing into the bathroom.

"Addison?" Mark asks, eyes securely shut. "Turn the alarm off."

"I'm late! Because of you, I'm late."

Mark finally awakens, rudely, to her burning glare and he simply sighs before rolling over to go retrieve Kennedy, now beginning to protest in the distance. "You'll be fine," he says carelessly, hustling out of the room before she can aim and throw something in his general direction.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark feels Addison nervously pacing through the house, catching her dangling her keys more than once through the oddly hollow sounding house. "Your phone is upstairs," he volunteers, Audrey's hand wrapped around his thumb, clumsily trying to bring it to her mouth.

"Got it," Addison replies foggily, waving it in the air. "I feel like I'm forgetting something." She smoothes out her gray skirt, tugs a piece of forlorn hair behind her ear, and squints at the living room hoping it will give her an answer. But all she can make out is Ellie impatiently banging her heels against the edge of the couch as she waits for Mark to get the posse rounded up.

"You're fine," Mark assures her, grabbing a toy off the counter for Kennedy's car ride, amused with Addison's sudden nerves. The hospital is home after all, work is comfort for them, but Addison seems soundly out of her element. "You'll be fine," he alternates after brief hesitation, every child fighting for attention, his eyes glued on her. He strides forward and leans over Audrey to give Addison's cheek a quick peck. "Knock 'em dead."

"Gee thanks," Addison murmurs.

"You should get going, traffic."

"Yeah," she laments, wanting to dive in and be wrapped up in his arms for a quick minute, everything holding her back.

She was so excited over the weekend for this exact moment, Sam catching her up on all the happenings of the practice, Dell even bringing her some files Sunday morning. And Mark was brilliant at keeping all of the screeching to a minimum so she could study her patients and not have to soothe Ellie after the disastrous sleepover.

But now she wants to slip out of her heels and go hide under the covers of her safe bed again. Because the wandering looks, the color commentary on her fast return, the marveling over her state of being, it's not a pressure she's positive she can withstand after having been out of the spotlight, out of the group, for so long.

All she wants to do is get into an O.R. and start cutting, start healing something she can actually mend.

At a complete loss, not able to turn away, not committed to the day just yet, she makes her exit amidst Mark shuffling children to the car solo.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The hospital is relatively easy. She doesn't know a lot of the staff, and the majority of them only know of her. Charlotte King greets her with a tall cup of coffee, a gleeful slap on the back, and a stack of new papers that needed to be signed weeks ago. Then she gravely relinquishes that if Addison needs fewer hours, or an easier time for a while that there will be no hard feelings (no more than usual) and that she can return to the practice full time if need be. Addison smiles and puts her busy mind at ease mere milliseconds before a blue chart is shoved into her hands on top of everything else.

The aqua, worn plastic looks promising. It will ensure that she spends the majority of her morning slicing, receiving many thanks for her heroics. Unfortunately, those warm and unwelcome hugs meant only another cup of coffee for lunch and a handful of stale crackers she found on the passenger seat from weeks ago that were probably meant for Ellie's grubby fingers. The salt shifts from the package into her lap as she shifts, mouth full, freshly donned surgery hair tangling in the wind. The sun is beating down on the back of her already hot neck, but for the first time in a long time, she wouldn't change a thing.

Nothing has felt as right as that first incision did this morning.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

That feeling is quickly soured and countered, however, when she steps foot into Oceanside. Nothing physical is different. There are patients mingling in the waiting area, the receptionist the same as she left, the lights above still collecting dust, and yet it feels different. It makes her shift relentlessly from shiny heel to shiny heel, tapping her fingers against the counter as she waits for her stack of messages.

She feels like a time bomb.

Ticking, waiting, for Sam or Naomi or god forbid Violet to come and ask the obligatory questions, respond the appropriate way, and then be onto their next endeavor. Addison doesn't know when that line stops, when they can go back to normal, if they go back to normal.

All she knows is she enjoyed the rather faceless anonymity she was flying with this morning. Oceanside is anything but a breath of fresh air after a reprieve; it's inhaling sand on a windy day at the beach.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You look good," Naomi greets her, breezing into the practice's kitchen, tugging on the candy drawer.

"Thanks," Addison mumbles, distracted by the coffee maker and its slow jog to life. She needed caffeine two hours ago, but after digging out from a pile of files, and stammering through her first appointment (which went surprisingly well, considering), she's finally made it.

"Look Addison, I don't...I don't know what is going on with you, what's going on with us," Naomi shrugs. "If you need me, I'm always here."

Except when she wasn't, Addison thinks to herself. "I'm just...a little overwhelmed today. It's fine, we're fine."

"Good," Naomi smiles disbelieving, watching her friend fumble a mug, shaking her head when it smacks the floor and scatters into a million tiny fragments. As she bends to help scoop up the remnants, she remarks, "Richard Webber called yesterday. I wasn't going to say anything, you're not really settled back into work, but he was rather impatient with the receptionist and he got transferred. Don't...go, back, to Seattle. Cause we need you here. All of us."

"Did he say why he was calling?" Addison asks. It could be nothing, it could be a courtesy call from an old friend, an old boss.

"No. He wants to speak with you. You probably haven't made a big enough of a dent in your messages to see the note yet...I just thought I should mention it."

"I told Mark we should get married in the winter," Addison says abruptly earning a gaping stare. "I- he was...I don't know. It just happened. And I'm freaking out, why am I freaking out?"

"Well-"

"It's a good thing, it's not like we set a date. It's just a season, and...I can't sleep."

"Welcome to motherhood," Naomi laughs. She's not sure she slept the entire year Maya was under a year old. "Hey, do you want to get together tonight? Have dinner?"

"I can't," Addison declines. Between work and the catastrophe she is sure is awaiting her at home, there's nowhere to squish a fun meal in.

"At the house, little wine, little girl talk. I haven't seen the twins in far too long. I need some baby time."

"Ok," Addison nods. More hands helping probably shouldn't be turned down.

"How's Mark handling it today?" Naomi laughs. The prospect of Mark Sloan with a baby in each arm, juggling bottles; the image is too funny to ignore.

"What?" Addison asks muted, leaping to drink golden Sumatra from the pitcher it is frothing within.

"He hasn't called you screaming yet?"

"No," Addison shakes her head. She checked her cell on the drive over. No news being bad news never crossed her mind.

"Impressive," Naomi commends, ripping into the red foil of chocolate.

"I- have a patient," Addison states quickly, itching to escape. She hears Naomi call out that she'll see her tonight, but all Addison can think of is if she was supposed to call and check in. If she should have taken a larger space between patients and driven home to make sure things were going swimmingly. But then, she considers, that provided they weren't, she is of little use as a rock of support.

He's better off alone.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Dr. Montgomery?"

"Hhmmm?" Addison replies, being caught off-guard, and reeled back in from her daydream. There was a white dress, black flowers, and a wonderful band in a city she's never seen before. Of course her third and final patient is carrying twins, identical, because that's how her universe likes to work. And of course she's seems otherwise healthy but her blood pressure is alarmingly high and something feels wrong. The problem is Addison can't discern the discomfort of being placed in this situation and if the patient is actually fine.

"I'd like to send you to St. Ambrose to be admitted. I'm not happy with your blood pressure Nicole, and I want to make sure that nothing is wrong-"

"Something is wrong with them?" the patient nearly squeals, reaching for her stomach. She's all alone in this. Husband, man, boyfriend, gone, whoever he was. There's no sister holding her hand or mother at her side. Just Nicole. Naomi's Nicole, who, according to the file, thought she'd be fine on her own.

"No, it's purely a precaution," Addison assures her, a hand falling to her patient's arm as it has so many times in the past. It's second nature to switch into doctor mode, to empathize without thought or emotion.

"I was thinking Samantha, Sam for short and maybe Theresa," Nicole relays to her, being flanked by paramedics for the short ride a few blocks over. She's nervous, Addison can see her shaking despite her bravery. "Do you have children Dr. Montgomery?"

"No," Addison replies with a soft grin, escorting her outside, giving strict instructions on how she is to be treated. "I'll meet you there, get you signed in," Addison informs her patient, checking her watch quickly. She may have enough time to make it for dinner, may not. Either way, she's not sure she cares.

It all feels too soon for the high of surgery again, for a collateral life to be ending for the evening.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Where have you been?" Mark hisses at her, helping her with her bags through the side door, his voice dropping even further when Naomi and Sam come into view in the living room holding the twins.

"Working," Addison answers firmly.

"Phones-"

"Don't start with me Mark. I've had a hell of a day...so just don't start, okay?"

Nicole had panicked, spiking her blood pressure, forcing Addison to stay longer than she wanted. And she's sure tomorrow will be more of the same as long as she doesn't get a random page in the middle of the night. In truth, she feels bad for the good day she had. The fun she had in surgery, she feels guilty for not being at home taking care of her own family. But then, that was never her strong suit.

"They're asleep," Mark sighs. "They're all asleep and you never even saw them today."

"First day back," Addison shrugs, pressing a quick kiss to his lips when Naomi glances up and then excuses herself to go pretend to fawn over the sleeping children no one can seem to get enough of.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Tuesday was a more intense shift, almost the entire day cleared out and spent at the hospital, Addison picking up extra surgeries where she found the time, updating charts and mindless paperwork when she wasn't slicing. She had coffee from the cart, soup from the cafeteria, and stupid banter with Charlotte King, who she now thinks has rather taken a shine to the idea her child was named after her (even though she wasn't, Charlotte was his choice- would have been Derek's choice).

Today, however, is only marginally better than horrid. Stuck at the practice, slowly sifting through the backdated accounting and other useless forms, Addison has far too much time on her hands to drift in and out of memories.

They're all spread out over the practice, the doors closed for the day. It's Spring Cleaning at Oceanside, and without the emergent patients and amusing anecdotes, Addison is floundering. Cooper is rattling off about Charlotte to Violet, and Naomi is in the distance arguing with Sam over something mundane.

They do look like him, she decides, glaring at the picture Mark decided to send her an hour ago. They look just like Derek, and it's not a particularly great trait. She doesn't remember how soft Audrey's skin was this morning, or what the top of Charlotte's head smells like, and her arms aren't aching from their new work out. Her huge strides are actually teeny, tiny steps. They are half-feedings and attempted baths. They are soft songs and uneven words trembled in the middle of the night when everything else fails.

She's faltering in a way she never even considered. Because she was always going to have kids, and she was going to do it her way, the hard way, and she'd be amazing. She'd be tired, but she'd bake cupcakes for soccer games, and tie bows into hair. She'd wake up extra super early to make breakfast for special days and take afternoons off for surprise trips.

She was so positive that this was her calling, above all else. But they look like him.

"Addison?" Cooper attempts for the third time, leaning across the conference room table to tap her shoulder.

"Yes."

She startles easily, Cooper has noticed. "I was hoping to set up a time with you for Charlotte and Audrey's next check up."

"Right." God, she should be better than guessing when the last one was, supposing who has been vaccinated and on what. At the very least, she should know the medical side of things. "Well, Mark- he's home still. I can call him and ask-"

"I'll call," Cooper negotiates, taking a mindful head nod from Violet. "I should ask him about poker night anyway."

"Kids are hard," Violet eases when her best friend tip toes from the room. "Jake is worried about you, Addison. You don't return his calls."

"Busy," Addison smiles politely. Of course Jake is worried, she's worried. They all should be worried for crying out loud.

"You should talk to someone. Whoever you are most comfortable with. I think you need that."

The person, however, she is most comfortable with is Mark and she can't talk to Mark anymore about the kids she doesn't want because he's made it as plain as day that they are staying, that he loves them, and that he wants this to work. It's more than she ever could have asked for, it's the dream.

But it feels like a nightmare; a weighted belt driving her closer to the bottom of the ocean. No matter how many times she struggles up for air, she's still drowning.

"Is the stuff Pete gave you helping?" Violet pushes, toying with the pen in her hand, studying Addison's distant stare.

"It's not fair. Every time I look at them, when they are sleeping or crying or eating-" she pauses sliding her phone onto the hard wood table. "I...it's just not fair. He would have been the most amazing father, albeit a neglectful husband, but a really good dad. I think they deserved that. I think they deserve more than one crazy parent."

"And Mark?"

"-is Mark," Addison finishes her sentence with a shrug. "I want to believe he isn't going anywhere Violet," Addison says softly. "I want to believe that the kids thing and the getting married thing aren't some midlife crisis, something to fill the gaps he didn't realize until now were present in his life."

"But?" Violet asks expectantly. This is the most progress they've ever made, even if teetering on highly unprofessional.

"We've been through this horrible thing-this life altering situation. I'm scared. I'm scared he's just clinging to what's there, that he's going to wake up in a few months and realize what's happened to him and his old life-"

"And you'll be alone?"

"With four kids, instead of just two," Addison gulps pitifully. Most of the time it is all consuming, this fear. Coupled with her poor mothering choices, lack of sleep, anxiety attacks over nothing living, it leaves her always on edge. Waiting for someone to jump, watching for the recoil.

"You need therapy," Violet restates. "If not with Jake, then someone else. I can help you find that person, if you want."

"It's just, I feel good...I feel normal when I'm in surgery. I feel like Addison, but here..." Addison drifts off, surveying the empty halls. Mark's office light is off, his door firmly shut. He offered to come in, with all the kids, and try and help. But it would have been more of a hassle, more of a show for Addison to put on than anything else.

This is the scene of the crash. This is revisiting the accident. Reagan, Derek, where she found out about the twins, fighting with Mark, coloring with Ellie. The whole story is here, enclosed in these warm walls. It's like two firmly wrapped hands around her neck every single time she steps off the elevator.

"You have a happy place. That's good," Violet commends.

"My happy place should be at home with my family."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark lingers in the doorway to Addison's bedroom (he calls it that since most of his stuff is in piles scattered across the house) sans children and watches his fiancée shift and squirm in her fake sleep. She called in sick today, the second day of Spring Cleaning, and he assured Naomi that he would make it in for the second half of the day to help out (something he feels he should especially be doing as the interloper). However, watching her tremble under the feather-weight quilt, Mark is starting to think he's had better ideas.

Yes, he told her to go lay down, and yeah, she was helping out this morning with socks and bottles and the insanity that is their new lives. But, he's not so sure she can go it solo today. He shrugs out of his sweater, and kicks off his shoes before sliding in behind her and encasing her in a warm hug.

"I'm fine," Addison mumbles into the pillow, her red hair covering one eye.

"You're sick," Mark corrects smartly, pressing his lips to her neck. "I shouldn't go in," he sighs a few minutes later, after she's relaxed enough to breathe with him.

"Maybe you're sick too," Addison grins, scooting back against him confidently.

"Don't start Addison, if you can't-" Mark stops as the monitor to their right crackles to life with the whines of one or the other. He's so sex deprived that they could probably have this done and over with as quick as he could get down the hall, but he shoulders the pain of not exploring her body and loosens his grip when one wakes the other and they show no signs of stopping. If this isn't growing up (not throwing her feet over his shoulders and having his way) then he doesn't know what is.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I don't know, she looked good yesterday," Cooper confesses, every one stacked into the practice kitchen, sharing a late lunch with a newly arrived and inquiring Mark. He's been scarce, more so than Addison, but he looks refreshed and chipper.

"She's not sick," Violet accuses, but then only she and Addison know what they discussed yesterday.

"Not exactly," Mark states, digging through a carton of Chinese food like he hasn't been fed in the last year. In truth, the change of pace is nice. It's good to be eating with two hands, instead of one being bogged down with an infant. And there's a quiet in his mind that he can't quite place, but it's lovely.

"I should go see her after work," Naomi interjects, receiving a strong squeeze on her hand from Sam. "It's poker night. Violet, we could have a girls night."

"Wine with children?" Violet rebuts, immediately displeased.

"I completely forgot," Mark apologizes. "Maybe next week, guys."

"No! No," Cooper jumps up from his seat. "I'm sick of playing with these two, they conspire against me and it's never an even table," he says, pointing at both Pete and Sam.

"We'll do it at my house, you'll be close," Sam offers politely, smiling at Naomi.

"They're just tired of me taking their money," Pete offers, laughing.

"Maybe," Mark seesaws, toying with his chopsticks. Poker with the guys, a cold beer. It sounds like heaven, but for the first time he's struck with the oddity of wanting to stay home, to be with her, with them. He doesn't want to miss a thing.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Not what I had in mind," Charlotte states with a quick roll of her eyes before she downs the rest of her martini, instantly pouring another.

"Sorry," Addison sighs, fingers steadily holding a bottle of formula for Audrey instead a glass of wine. She promised Mark she wouldn't drink, nay, promised she wouldn't drink and swim. As it is she can barely juggle one activity, let alone two.

"She's getting so big Addison," Naomi remarks, Kennedy gripping her fingers, wobbling on her own two legs as she attempts to stand. The green paisley pajamas bunch around her knee as she bounces, victory surely coming her way within the next few months. "She's going to be walking soon. Maya started walking-"

"Oh God," Charlotte moans. "Talk about something interesting. Blood, gore, sex. Come on ladies."

"I could use some sex," Violet states to her drink, not bothering to look up to see if anyone cares. "I'm celibate, and not in a fun, voluntary way."

"Me too," Addison tacks on, a quasi lie, trying to participate in something that no longer feels second nature. It's taking every ounce of strength not to dash out of the room and hide. Conversations are artificial, words are often garbled. She doesn't know how to be around people anymore.

"You and Hot Stuff?" Charlotte quirks a brow. "I would not be celibate."

"Charlotte!" Naomi laughs.

"What?"

"He is pretty," Violet concurs, briefly glancing across the living room to see Sam's house lit up. "Not as pretty as the ex, in my book. That hair."

"The eyes," Naomi adds without thought, and then freezes as they all stare at Addison awaiting a response to the mention of Derek, but she's content with mindlessly watching Audrey eat.

"Nah, too wimpy. I need someone who knows what to do without being told," Charlotte spurts, breaking the tension effortlessly.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Dude, they are fine," Pete mumbles, looking over his cards once more before throwing several chips into the pot in a raise that Mark doesn't notice. He's been too busy staring at the window all night.

"She'd call- someone would call," Sam reminds him. Or they could shout from the deck, or come over. There's nothing wrong, he's convinced.

"One more hand," Mark relinquishes, taking another drag off his bottle. It doesn't taste quite as good as he thought it would, even if it is his favorite. And being away from home with the guys isn't nearly as entertaining as it once was. But the break is nice, the testosterone is a pleasant change, so he plays twenty-three more hands, has two more beers, and a few slices of pizza all the while ribbing Cooper about Charlotte teaching him how to play because there is no way he got this good within a matter of months.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The girls ended up busting the party, Charlotte falling drunkenly into Cooper's lap and demanding to be taken home at once, Violet winking at Pete in a way Mark hadn't noticed until tonight, and Naomi simply climbing the stairs to Sam's room without invitation.

Which is how he found her here, sitting sideways in an empty bathtub, completely clothed, cross-legged. She's clutching something in her right hand that he can't see, and the telltale redness of her cheeks tells him that there have been tears, many tears.

No one gave him a clue, a hint, that maybe Addison didn't have as great of a time as they all did. But clearly she didn't, and now, exhausted and shut down, he's dealing with the part no one else gets to see; the part no one else has to shuffle through without help.

He pries her clinched fist open, a gold chain falling onto his palm. It's flimsy and old looking, a pendant swirling further down the line. It's familiar, but he can't place it. He knows he's seen it on her, but he doesn't know when. He examines it closely as her head slouches onto the edge of the pristine white tub and the tears start again.

It's broken.

Severed in the middle, the pendant willing and ready to jump off at any moment. And then he remembers where he saw it. This morning, in bed. And every other morning before it. He can't specifically remember a time when she wasn't wearing it in recent history. "We'll get a new one," he offers, but it only seems to set her off more.

"You're drunk," Addison sniffles, burying her head further into her own sleeve. She feels ridiculous and all of seven years old. He wasn't supposed to be home to soon, her coworkers weren't supposed to bail on her so quickly. But Ellie needed a bath, Kennedy got tired and fussy, and the entire night hastily dissolved and fizzled. Especially after Kennedy looped her fingers into the necklace and inadvertently snapped the chain.

"No," Mark denies, shaking his head and studying the necklace again. He watches her shuffle out of the tub, pulling on her shirt and escape the bathroom with what little dignity she may have.

He wants to ask her if she knows about Violet and Pete, and see what she thinks of Naomi and Sam shacking up again. He wants to know what she believes. Instead, he's greeted with the cold slip of sheets in a late Spring evening, the shivering spreading from his stomach to toes, Addison curled away from the moon.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark doesn't get much sleep, consumed and wrought with anxiety over the stupid necklace he still has. He just can't place it, but it feels like it has been around forever. He can't remember a time when it wasn't there.

And it's that leading him toward believing that this has something to do with Derek. The memories still burn, their fun times, all the things he wants to call him about.

He's busy spinning it into the salty ocean breeze out on the balcony when Addison's voice interrupts his thoughts. Quickly, he closes a fist around the delicate chain and turns to face her, willing Derek to come back another time. Gone is the Addison of last night. No tear marks, no sadness emanating from her pores, no head hung, shoulders slumped. Present is the Addison that used to stand tall, bark orders at interns, and wait impatiently in lines.

And for a split second, he's the fool. For the tiniest, most slippery moment the dream looks like reality. Charlotte asleep against her too expensive blouse, black skirt cut impossibly tight, heels bordering on ridiculous. Her face is flawless, hair swept up professionally, a lavender striped blanket protecting her suit of armor.

But then he sees it. The tension in the hand supporting the baby, the crease of her forehead as she huffs his name, the insecurity that flashes through each conversation is achingly apparent.

She's doing it, the mom thing, but he can tell she'd rather not. She doesn't want to be up at four in the morning and she doesn't want to pick out matching outfits with frilled collars. She doesn't want to watch Kennedy squirm around the living room floor reaching for her toys, and she doesn't want to notice the way the twins have started to lift their heads more and more. She doesn't need Ellie's homework when she has her own, and she could do without the family dinner he has planned this evening.

But she's here, and trying, and with him. And it makes the smallest non-victory a complete landslide that forces his lips to her own before she can say what she wants. The kiss, he can tell, is desired. She lingers, nips when he tries to pull away too fast.

"You were saying?" Mark asks, stepping a fraction of an inch backwards, hand resting on her hip, eyes locked on the magical baby resting against her neck.

"I was saying, I spoke with Richard yesterday afternoon and he needs me for the weekend. And since I was on my way up, I figured Ellie and Kennedy could go visit their father. I could pick them up on my way back on Sunday night, per our arrangement with Pierce."

"I-did-what?" Mark stumbles, shaking his head. The clever attack by an equally clever woman is never something he sees coming, but always should. Especially where Addison is concerned.

"I'm going to Seattle, Mark," Addison repeats, handing him Charlotte, itching to get the baby blanket off her skin.

"I could come," he offers lamely, still trying to catch up.

"No, they shouldn't..." Addison drifts away, speaking of the baby in his arms. It makes sense to him. They are too young, they are too little, their immune system isn't as strong as it could be.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asks, trying to appear confident. Having her here, resistant, but here is much needed. Back up is good, him and two tiny infants is probably not a well thought out plan.

"I'll get ahold of Pierce today and let him know," Addison says with a smile.

"We can talk about it tonight," Mark says resolutely, trying to believe this hasn't already been set in stone.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Two great surgeries and one new patient intake was the best balance Addison could have hoped for today, and she winds her way home early with a smile. They are flying out late tonight, flights booked at ten this morning, and she has just enough time to race home, pack everyone, share a quick meal with Mark, and then get through security.

She's surprised by the flowers in the middle of the table, and the distinct lack of food smells coming from the kitchen. But Mark is asleep on the couch, baby monitor hooked on his thumb, twins sound asleep across the room in their cocoon of blankets and enticing swings of slumber. He looks too peaceful to wake so she discards her heels, tiptoes across the entry, and drapes a warm throw over his bare feet.

And for the first time, amidst a sea of plush, colored blocks and burp clothes, Addison finds herself genuinely thinking that Mark could be a great dad too, that maybe they can navigate her crazy, and the audacious living situation and really pull this out. She climbs the stairs silently, comforted by their rest, and is about to head toward her closet when she runs fully into Ellie.

Ellie, who she forgot existed. Ellie, who must be bored to tears with all of the quiet. Ellie, who she hasn't had an actual conversation with, other than "go brush your teeth", in heaven only knows how long.

"Hello," Addison greets, keeping her smile strong, leading them both into the master bedroom.

"Aunt Addie, Daddy says we are going to see Dad," Ellie says, sliding onto the large bed in front of her and giving is a hesitant bounce.

Displeased with all of the nouns in the sentence, one she feels strongly should be named something else, Addison can only sigh. Because Mark may as well be Daddy, but in the same turn it's not fair to their actual father, it's not fair to Ellie when she realizes what the whole story is, and it's taxing not to say she doesn't want to punch Mark for even suggesting that was an appropriate title. "Yes," Addison answers plainly, reaching for her luggage, and letting it fall with a box of shoes to the bottom of the crowded closet.

"I don't want to go," Ellie informs her as she drags the suitcase to the floor and begins tossing articles of clothing around it according to what she thinks the weather will be like up there. "Take Kendy."

"I am taking your sister," Addison replies. "But your Dad would like to see you, so I promised him I would make sure he got to spend time with you. Next weekend we can all spend time together here."

"I don't want to go," Ellie repeats and Addison isn't interested in having this discussion. She pulls the phone from the bedside table and orders Chinese so there will be no cooking and then returns to her packing. She will get the girls packed between mouthfuls of noodles, and pray that Mark wakes up refreshed enough to get the whole group in the car, and help her through check-in.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Instead of the laundry list of instructions Mark was fearing, he got silence. All the way to the airport. Once she gave him a page full of directions on how to not kill the lone fern in the brownstone, and how to make sure the door was locked with the alarm set when she and Derek left for a weekend trip of skiing and snowball fights. The plant died anyway, and he never ventured from the premises, stacking up pizza boxes and taking nightly deliveries of alcohol and women.

A page for a stupid green leaf. And nothing for two living, breathing humans. He should really stop being surprised, and he should stop wanting to shake her back into reality, but then she mentions something about the movers coming by tomorrow morning to begin what will probably be a week long transition, and he can't help but groan, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

She tells him to not worry, that they know explicitly what they are to be doing (far more than he can say for himself), and that she'll call when she lands in Seattle. He kisses her goodbye while trapped in an open door, her hand wrapped tightly around Ellie's so she won't make a dash for it. He bids her a fun trip, rubs Kennedy's fuzzy red hair, and watches as Addison turns around without so much as a second look at her own children.

He's out of ideas, out of patience, and overwhelmed.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You never could quite master a drama free entrance," Callie teases, watching her friend struggle with her useless sunglasses, a rather dashing looking young man in tow, pulling her single bag across the parking garage.

"You're the one who insisted on picking me up," Addison reminds her, eagerly taking in the guiltless hug before clearing her throat and stepping back to take a good look. "Dr. Karev," she says in distaste, nodding in his general direction.

"Dr. Montgomery," he replies, not for a second letting go of Callie's hand.

"So," Addison begins, watching Alex help the gentlemen that offered to escort her out, "tell me everything."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"What about you?" Callie asks, mid bite, tossing the slice of pizza onto the greasy lid and shoving it closer to Addison who has had roughly four bites topped by four glasses of wine.

"What about me?" Addison asks, a smile gracing her face easily. Seattle is different, it's a welcome distraction, change, and vacation. No one knows everything that has transpired in California, no one knows how messed up everything is, no one knows how badly she's failing.

It's lovely. She never wants to leave.

"How's Mark? Your circus? Did you even bring pictures?" Callie prods, reaching for her phone to show Addison the one picture she has of the twins, outdated and grainy.

"He's good, they're good," Addison answers shortly, absently rubbing her foot. When Callie quirks her brow in a way that suggests she'll dig until she gets something Addison relents with, "I'm engaged."

She spends the rest of the early morning dodging questions about her missing ring, how the girls are health wise, anything to do with what should be her "birth story", and the status of the two redheaded orphans. Instead, she sticks to Oceanside gossip, interesting cases, and about how they are moving this weekend.

And it's enough. It's enough in Seattle to give half-truths and spin tiny lies so people look the other direction.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Mark?" Naomi asks, looking around the store aisles and clicking through the marked tiles while her phone dials him once more. She finds him on number three, staring at a wall of diapers, Audrey asleep in the basket of the cart, Charlotte fussing on his shoulder. His jeans are dirty, his shirt wet at the shoulder from what she can only imagine is spit up, and his hair is oddly flat and unconquered.

"I don't," Mark shrugs frustratedly. "I don't know what to get. Addison always goes- to the store. She goes, I stay. What do I get?"

It was hell getting them into the car, it was a rough night, Mark succeeding to sleeping in short bursts. He's gotten used to her, used to a second set of hands at night, used to her telling him that she wants to try it alone this time, even if it never works. And he's taken them places, he's gone out on errands, with them both, but he usually has Ellie to make funny faces when the twins get mad, and to open doors for him when his hands are full. Alone, it's difficult to get one out and situated and then the other, let alone make it through a store.

It's funny how much he misses her, how much he misses all of them after only twenty some odd hours.

"It doesn't matter," Naomi relays to him. It does, but it doesn't. To get him through the rest of the day, it's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

"It matters," Mark objects cautiously. It matters to Addison. Matters that their tiny clothes match, that they have both socks on, that they are fed on a schedule. She's impossible to replace, even when she's hardly trying.

"It's fine," Naomi maintains, grabbing the closet package of newborn diapers she can reach. They've grown little in their short weeks home, weight an evident battle with everyone in the house except Kennedy. Mark's lost some, Addison is ridiculous, Ellie in the middle of a growth spurt. It's all unnerving, seeing them bunched up on the beach from Sam's windows, taking slow walks in the sand.

"Can- Will you come-" Mark begins nervously. He knows Naomi doesn't exactly approve of this, knows that Naomi is always and will always be on Addison's side. But he also knows Naomi will help when she can, and that she's as tired, if not more so, than Mark of watching Addison suffer voluntarily.

"Where?" Naomi sighs, looking at her watch. She'll miss lunch with her on-again, off-again ex-husband, of that much she is certain.

"They need stuff," Mark says, switching Charlotte to his other shoulder when his arms get tired. He can see Audrey stirring in her seat and he feels an anxious bubble rise into his throat. He can't deal with their screaming in a store, he's hardly prepared to sit down and feed them in the middle of the fluorescent lit aisle. "Addison- we're moving, and she said she'd decorate but I don't think she can, or wants to...they need girl things."

"Like?" Naomi pries, trying to work his coyness out, taking Audrey into her arms to coo at when her blue eyes pop open. Addison mentioned something about moving further down the road, but never said when, never asked for help, or a housewarming committee. She lives in a bubble of warm, liquid solidarity.

"Little dresses and shoes, do they wear shoes? They don't walk anywhere. And blankets, but it's going to be hot soon. I can't find anything anymore," Mark states, thinking back over the messy house. He could hardly find his car keys, barely remember where he last placed the remote.

Truth be told, their living space is driving him towards the edge too. He's sick of stepping on plastic horses and tripping over everyone's shoes. There's nowhere good to put Kennedy's activity center, nowhere to let the twins sleep in the company of the other housemates. There's not enough space to breathe, to think.

"You have time Mark," Naomi reminds him, the heat of spring barely easing in on them.

"Addison won't go," Mark reveals, shifting his feet while they wait in line to pay, one lone item in his shopping cart. What he could use is a beer, not an adventure in bows and pink shit.

"She loves shopping."

Addison loves buying bags, shoes, art, kitchen appliances they'll never use. But nothing for the kids. Just formula to keep them quiet and diapers to keep them dry. But anything personal- pajamas, quilts, toys- count her out. And unless he can drag out Mrs. Shepherd again, or every three weeks, he's going to have to man up and do this. "I thought it'd be a nice surprise, in the new house, if it was done by the time she got back," Mark replies, changing his tactic.

The problem is, the nursery, as he deems it, is twice the size in his house and there is nothing to fill it. The problem is, no one ever bothered decorating Kennedy's room. All it has is the crib he and Derek put together shabbily and a white dresser. The problem is, there's no way to recreate the purple vomit room that Addison and Ellie conjured up. But it could all come together, it could be done, and quickly with some help.

"Ok," Naomi complies, "Let me call Sam."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Rough landing," Callie comments as Addison flops onto the couch in the lounge, immediately rolling to get the paper from underneath her.

"I remember this being much more inviting," Addison comments, attempting to ease her aching back, feet, and numb mind. The surgery was a huge success, as far as everyone who counts is concerned. Addison knows there was something amiss. Her timing was off, her fingers hovering for just a fraction of a second too long. There will be a tiny scar, one healthy baby in two months time, and an ecstatic father figure looming in the background, however, all Addison sees are the small flaws.

The paperwork was bumbled by a underachieving nurse, she was late to meet with the patient, she was uncomfortable in the navy blue scrubs, she forgot her trusty, swirled scrub cap, the coffee tastes bland, and the halls are unusually eerie with a lack of gossip. Plus she keeps looking for Derek's name up on the board.

"Addison Montgomery," Miranda greets, smiling at the sight of a her old friend.

"Miranda, hello," Addison returns, watching Callie shift away and then bolt from the room for reasons unknown, though if Addison had to guess it was probably going to involve Karev.

"Come to your senses and return to Seattle?" Miranda asks, taking a chair and plopping down a thick chart which was sloppily updated by Yang's interns the night before.

"No, Richard asked me to come out, for a case," Addison explains, shifting again, this time kicking off her running shoes, and tucking her socked feet under her legs. She should go check on the patient soon, but she has allotted fifteen minutes of relaxation.

"Good to have you," Miranda sighs, flipping her paperwork open and twirling a pen between her fingers before resigning and shutting it once more. "You must be busy down there, all the warm sunshine gone to your head, make you stop communicating with the other people in your life."

"Excuse me?" Addison questions hoarsely.

"You clearly are not pregnant any longer, yet I haven't seen or heard about any new baby, nor has anyone in the hospital. Shocking, considering from what I hear you live with Seattle's biggest gossip."

"Busy," Addison mutters, starting to feel the redness burn into her cheeks. She has nothing to offer Miranda, nothing to show Callie, nothing exciting to tell Richard. It is what it is, and she never thought she'd be reducing herself to that phrase until now.

"Well you better get yourself un-busy and meet me at Joe's in two hours."

"I have an early flight," Addison interjects, lying, asserting her own authority and lack of enthusiasm at having to oh, ah, and coo over the total three pictures she owns of her new little family.

"Good, you can catch up on your sleep then."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The problem is, Addison decides over a weak glass of red wine, that she didn't wake up once last night. The issue is, clearly, that when she awoke this morning to the beeping of her alarm clock she simply stretched and curled back into a ball, hitting the snooze button and not once thinking about how it may affect anyone else in the house. She did miss Mark keeping her warm, but the cries, the midnight bottles, not even her body is in the habit of being with them.

And it was, by far, the best sleep of her life. The guilt can come later, when she's back in hell.

"This is all you have for us?" Callie whines, sliding Addison's blackberry back into her grasp.

"Busy," Addison repeats, hoping they can recognize how four children, one man child, and never-ending laundry might put a damper on the picture parade they want. She crosses her legs under the table, uncrosses them, and then stamps a pointy heel into her ankle. Meredith is on the other side of the bar, downing tequila like a lifeline, looking worse for the wear, and Addison wonders if there's anyone here to annoy the hell out of her, keep tabs on her grieving. She heard, through the grapevine, that there was one breakdown mid-surgery, and one extended leave, but that Dr. Grey appears to have returned seemingly unscathed.

During Meredith watch, Callie slips away to toss darts with Karev, something Addison still isn't sure has been quite labeled, but she looks happier than she ever did with George and Addison believes that should count for something.

"It's hard," Miranda begins, studying her friend cautiously.

"Pardon?"

"We're surgeons first, not mothers. We miss first words, and crawls, teething, and bad nights. We aren't there on holidays and Sunday has no meaning in our world," Miranda relays, watching as Addison's eyes cloud over. "There's never going to be a balance, no matter how hard we try."

"Miranda," Addison croaks, more for her own safety than her counterparts. This is something that's been analyzed, something that peace has been made with.

"It's not what you thought it would be."

"No," Addison whimpers, a chord struck deep within, causing her to raise the lousy paper bar napkin to the corner of her eyes, dabbing at mascara that was holding up beautifully. "Not at all."

"I won't tell you it gets easier, because it gets harder, but Addison, don't dwell on what it should have been. Stop comparing the dream with reality, it's not fair to anyone."

"Mark called you-"

"He's good at keeping in touch, surprisingly, unlike someone else at this table," Miranda points out sternly. She doesn't particularly enjoy offering unsolicited advice (unless you count Mark, and she doesn't anymore), nor does she enjoy making people miserable (unless they deserve it), but watching Addison float about, from surgery, back to the patient, through the halls, warrants the event. "You don't get to be mad, put that in your head, because he's worried and he gets to worry sometimes, understand?"

"He shouldn't have called, that's not his place. I'm fine."

"You," Miranda says strongly, "are far from fine. But you could be, you could let yourself, be fine. If you wanted."

Instead of asking Bailey who it is she thinks she is, or if she is now embracing the Southern California zen Addison urges for, all Addison can do is breathe and cop to the feelings that invade every second of every day, unless she's busy cutting someone up, unless there is no room in her mind for anything but medicine. "I can't tell them apart."

"You will," Miranda assures her, tapping her overturned hand on the table.

"I don't know what their cries mean, or what they want, ever. I make them sleep when they are hungry, I change them when they want to be held. I- I don't know them."

"You will," Miranda says once more, convincing herself that they can pull out of the tragedy that still looms over the hospital each and every day.

"I'm good with babies, Miranda, I'm great. But I don't feel anything, nothing." She doesn't know how to explain it any other way. She would still bolt out in front of a car to save their lives, but because that's what she does, not out of some protective duty. There's no warmth, no sense of home in their presence, no pride, no enthusiasm.

There's no connection, period.

Miranda can't tell her she will, because she might not. She may stay numb, she might struggle through each day, but as a mother there is one thing she knows. "You love them, if you didn't, you wouldn't care. It's just not what you thought it would be."

"No," Addison nods, agreeing.

Never in a million years did she imagine her and Derek's kids without him in the picture. Never did she see a beach house, or Los Angeles. She didn't think she'd raise kids with Mark, in fact, she was against it at one point. She didn't think she'd be dying for time in an operating room, and be eager to do research instead of making pancakes on a Saturday morning.

But then, everything, it would appear, is on its head these days.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Looks good," Pete comments, looking around the freshly painted living room into the open aired kitchen. The back doors are open, the ocean calm, and he particularly enjoys the shade of blue the decorator chose to use. The hint of yellow, the cream. It's all similar to Addison's old house, but different, in a way he can't put his finger on. Maybe slightly less feminine.

"Better," Violet huffs, dropping a stack of heavy books on the old rug, one of the few pieces that make the trek over from the old house.

Mark left it as it was, a token to another time, fairly positive that Addison wasn't even remotely interested in packing anything other than clothes and going. Especially, after hearing what she told the movers. So almost everything stayed. Couch, televisions, shower curtains. He figures there's gotta be someone out there who needs a furnished beach house.

He carefully rolled up his trusty sleeping bag while the babies slept in the foyer, and stuffed it up on a shelf in the garage. He doesn't need it anymore.

He has a home, with a bed. He has a place to call his own, filled with the people who understand and appreciate him the best. On the hard days, when he and Addison yell until one of them runs, he can still come back and sit out on his newly remodeled deck furniture, and poke at the sand with his toes. And on the good days, when the air turns crisp, they'll curl up in front of the now functioning fireplace and watch the twins try to crawl.

Mark turns back on the group, studying the new cream colored furniture, and the dark wood kitchen table big enough for everyone when they can sit upright on their own, and decides this is it.

This is where he'll make the memories he always thought would be just out of reach. This place, with it's smooth hardwood floors and elegantly curved staircase, will be where he gets the life he never thought he deserved.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"It's good to see you, Addison," Pierce comments nervously, tightly grasping his youngest daughter as she squirms and reaches above for the facial hair he is trying to grow out. The weekend was interesting, and he had help- Lacey, his assistant came over on Saturday morning to go over a few things and ended up staying until dinner. Not that he or the girls appeared to mind. He reasons that it was probably better that she was there to steam off Ellie's questions about why she's here, why he's not in L.A. anymore, where Mommy is, and why she is being left alone. Because even when it's hard, even when he wants to scoop her up, and toss her into a tickle fight like the old days, he knows this is what is best.

That town, those people, that school, is what she needs. They both need better than him, and he's not man enough to stick it out and see if he can get better, nor strong enough to figure out what it is that he should change and get on it.

He's a shabby father, in most of his coworkers eyes by this point, but he's an excellent lawyer, and that's really all he has these days.

"You too," Addison grins, taking Kennedy when she reaches out away from him, throwing a polka dotted blanket over her shoulder to protect the fragile lace covering her skin. She grimaces when she realizes that the clean sensation she's been feeling will be instantly gone.

"You haven't signed the papers," Pierce notes, watching her whole body retreat. He pulls back on Ellie when she gets too excited by the passengers trying to get through security. "I don't want to rush you, Addison, but I'd like to get this in order. I do want to visit them."

"I understand," Addison complies. And she does, logically, but realistically, she's not just going to take over these kids, their lives, the next eighteen years.

She can't see the future.

"I will get them to you as soon as I can," Addison promises hollowly.

"I was- I was thinking of coming down in a few weeks, I could stop by."

"That'd be nice."

"Okay," Pierce nods, steering Ellie's arms back around to face him. "Alright Pumpkin, time to go with Aunt Addie, okay?"

Addison watches Ellie look from her father and back, and she can see the choice is clear. Despite his shortcomings, Pierce is her father, the only person she still has, and she'd rather be there. Child or not, Addison thinks that should count for something, she believes that maybe shuffling her through two households, neither of which that can give her the proper attention or affection, making her suffer through that every week, may be too much for anyone to take.

Ellie doesn't say goodbye or reach out for a hug, clasping her father's jean coated leg, and Addison hates how brave this has all made her. How grown up, and how alternately childish. The change wasn't voluntary, and that she can bond with, that she understands.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Addison spends the ride home from the airport thinking over the inane conversation she had with the passenger seated in the third chair of their row. A mother, of three, commenting on how she wished her girls looked more like her, asking Ellie what her favorite toys were, and in general making small talk out of nothing when all Addison wanted to do was tuck her chin over Kennedy's head and doze off for a few minutes while Ellie was strapped down.

It never happened, Kennedy screamed through the descent, an unwelcome change and an unnecessary event that drew many glares and sniveling quips about how kids should never fly. She used to agree, she still does agree. There's nothing worse than a poorly behaved child in an enclosed area, but a baby, a baby protesting the change in air pressure, is slightly different. Regardless, they landed in one piece, Ellie whiny and tired, Addison dragging her own feet and Sam greeting them instead of Mark. She can't say she wasn't disappointed to be chauffeured back to the house by her friend, but when they pulled up to Mark's house, she couldn't hide her smile.

Sam helps her unlatch Ellie, who races toward Mark, standing on the path between the house and the garage, and then diligently pulls all the luggage out of his car and bids them a goodbye.

By the time Addison reaches Mark, handing over a sleeping Kennedy, all she can do is exhale in relief. If they are staying here tonight, the move must have went well. Meaning Mark didn't yell and decide he could lift bookshelves better on his own, or call the whole thing off. He tells her to close her eyes, and kisses her quickly before taking her hand and carefully guiding her inside.

He watches her sneak a peek once the door latches shut, and Ellie is shouting at both of them, but he's not going to ruin this, so he pulls her forward and situates her in the middle of the living room, a prime view of most the downstairs ready when she is. His stomach jumps when she looks around blankly, from the overhead lighting to the new pictures hanging on the wall. He paid the heavy price of finding a designer on short notice and practically begged her to help him.

"Do you like it, we can change it-"

"It's...beautiful," Addison decides. There's no clutter. There's baby stuff in a basket under the coffee table, instead of strewn about the chairs and dominating the theme she had picked for herself. "When did- Why?"

"Thought it'd be nice," Mark grins proudly, surveying the space with her. There are picture frames still holding her past, trinkets from Derek, and her beloved vases, but they are higher on shelves, unable to be reached by clumsy hands that will soon be trying to pull on everything. It's safe, now, their space. No wondering whether Ellie will stick her toys in an electrical outlet if they leave her alone, no hoping that no one bumps a knee on the pointy end tables. "Come on, I'll show you the rest."

Though he picked virtually nothing out, the place feels as though it has a hint of Mark in it, Addison decides. The guest bathroom is decidedly accented with black, the office appointed with dark, rich furniture. They used the guest room downstairs as a play room, marked by pictures of old sailboats and the roaring ocean instead of anything childish. Ellie's room retained its purple features, but they are less overwhelming, the color lighter and more comforting. And Kennedy's space featuring the crib Mark couldn't part with, not with all the sweat and frustration that went into it, is lightly dabbled with a peach and sage theme that is neither annoying or ill-placed.

The twins, finally securing their own space larger than a closet, have been rewarded with a pale blue that Derek would have hated, and it makes Addison smile. But the best surprise is the master bedroom, complete with a fully organized closet, holding both of their clothes, none of Mark's boxes in the corner, and her own bed, that she fell in love with immediately after looking over thousands in a catalog before moving down.

Addison sinks down onto her comforter, freshly dry cleaned, and stretches against the inviting fabric. She could sleep, just like this, perfectly entranced with the new space. "Thank you," she says softly, rolling her head back and catching a glimpse of him in the doorway.

"I'm happy you like it," Mark replies, striding across the room to check on Audrey and Charlotte who are still fast asleep in their own bassinets that are wonderfully located far enough away that the whole room doesn't feel cramped.

Addison hasn't looked at them, hasn't made sure he didn't harm them while she was away, but she loves the house. And it's fine, for tonight.

The small victory dances on his shoulders while they get ready for bed, through teeth brushing and the removal of clothes. It stays present when he puts Kennedy in her own room, while he reads Ellie her nightly story, leaving her door open a crack just in case she gets scared and yells for assistance.

It bubbles when she curls up around him, pressing light kisses to his neck, and it explodes when she climbs astride him, spreading her body over his, urging him toward the one thing he has been craving since the last time they got interrupted. It's the best token of appreciation he could have hoped for.

He did good; he's doing good.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It drives Cooper insane, how detached Addison appears to be with her own children. He's not incredibly fond of being their pediatrician of choice, but they are family, so he prepares with a deep breath, a pat on the back from Violet, and an anticipative glare from Naomi.

For the first time, though, he's greeted by only his patients, and their "parents". No screaming seven month old, no Ellie digging through his carefully organized drawers. Just Mark, Addison, and the girls. And they look good, holding hands, one baby awake, another asleep.

But all the same, he zooms through the check-up, weighing, measuring, comparing, asking questions. Mark does the talking, he notes, still. But Addison is there, which is already a big improvement. She cleared her schedule, turned off her pager, and made the appointment. So he braves the waters and asks her a few things about their sleeping habits, to which he gets stilted and unsure answers, but answers just the same. Mark jumps in after the third round, balancing Audrey in one arm, Addison gripping a warm bottle, and Cooper takes mercy on all of them, announcing that everything looks fairly good.

They're a little lighter than he'd like to see at this age, but considering the condition in which they were born, he explains, he couldn't ask for better. No cradle cap, no diaper rash, good responses to stimuli, and proper head control. They're lucky, and Addison doesn't appear to understand or appreciate the severity of their miraculous recovery. It's no wonder he's going crazy over this.

"Good," Addison replies suddenly, alleviated, watching Cooper prepare a multitude of vaccines. Despite her poor job, something is balancing them all out, and she's afraid to admit that it is probably Mark. Mark making sure everyone on schedule, making sure silly homework is completed, making sure bills get paid when Addison forgets to tell her accountant that they moved. He's picking up her slack without complaint, tracing the lines on her palm as they attempt to make this mess work.

"Yeah," Mark agrees quietly, swaying unconsciously as Audrey drifts in and out. He reaches over and pulls down the sleeve on Charlotte's tiny pale pink sweater, brushing Addison's arm as he goes. He catches a brief smile, their eyes locking while Cooper is facing the counter. He wants to kiss her, wants to soothe the anxiety that is obvious, but before he gets a chance, Cooper is ready.

He picks Mark on purpose, first, because they've done this together before. He hasn't had Addison in his office yet. And also, because Audrey is the worse of the two. And true to his memories, the screams start immediately, drawing Addison's attention.

Mark can tell she wants to bolt from the room, and he can't stop her because he's busy soothing Audrey, teasing her with a toy. So he watches helplessly while Addison is forced to endure something she should be completely used to, yet seems to be having a hard time grappling with. He plucks the bottle off the floor next to his chair, flipping the lid, letting it clatter onto the tile, and tries to quiet at least one of the screaming infants in the room.

Between controlling his own nerves and making sure the bottle is tipped at the right angle, rolling it to garner interest, he catches another peek at Addison. Addison who a moment ago looked like she was going to tear out of the exam room and take off for her office. Addison who, for all intents and purposes, has been merely on auto pilot ever since she gave birth. But now, she's clinging to Charlotte tightly, supportive, tears coating her own lashes, an incredulous look plastered to her face as Cooper withdraws the needle.

And Mark thinks this could be it, their turning point. The moment where the mother inside her rises from hibernation and takes over this parade.

But when he hears her urging Cooper to stop, rising with Charlotte, he knows.

She may not be the best at getting them down for a nap later, and she may not have any idea how much they eat or how often. She might not sing a lullaby or read a story every night, but it is something. Watching her cuddle Charlotte, watching her whisper pointless pacifying sentences, seeing her put a bit of a natural bounce to her step, it's there, underneath all the grief, the sadness, the guilt, the fear.

He takes the opportunity to brush back a bit of hair that's fallen out of its half-back stance, gathering the faintest hint of water above her cheekbone, and kisses her forehead. "It's okay," Mark reassures her. Because even when they both know it's necessary, that it's for their own well being, it doesn't mean it doesn't sting to watch them cry when pain is willingly inflicted on their lives, and know that they didn't do anything to stop it.

"I know," Addison nods reluctantly. Never ever did she imagine she'd be the uncontrollable mother who cried when her children were hurt, nor did she, before now, ever see herself feeling anything for either one of them.

And even if it passes before they leave the room, even if doctor mode is fully engaged by the end of the day, and even if she doesn't feel this again until their next appointment, it's alright. Because at least she knows she's capable of feeling for them, with them, and that will be more than satisfying on the chilly nights where she can't seem to do one thing right.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


End file.
